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THROUGH FASCISM
TO WORLD POWER

A HISTORY OF
THE REVOLUTION IN ITALY

ION S. MUNRO

vn ■*

LONDON

ALEXANDER MAGLEHOSE & CO.
58 Bloomsbury Street

1933

PRINTBD !N OKKAT BRITAIN BY ROBERT MACLBMOSE AMD CO. LTD.
IBI UMKVXB917Y PRESS, GLASGOW

TO MY FATHER

“ Let us study these things ; ob-
serving the state of times past, the
doings of men, their governance, their
counsels, and their endeavours ; so
that we may discern and judge rightly
of things present, and foresee wisely
things to come.”

PREFACE

This book is a survey of Italian Fascism — its origins,
growth and development ; its principles and doctrine ;
its application and mechanism. These three groups are
dealt with independently, yet form one cycle of study.

Many people still think that the Fascist Revolution
is merely a reaction against post-war International
Socialism and Bolshevism, — a thing of cudgels and
castor-oil, the overthrowing of a Parliament, and the
seizure of power by a dictator of the Extreme Right;
Such a description is woefully incomplete and wholly
misleading. The seeds and roots of Fascism, as this
book will shew, are to be found in a political terrain
much deeper than that marked by any Communist
menace.

In tracing the growth of Fascism a chronological
method has been followed which unfolds its story from
the foundation of the first Fascio (Fascist centre) in 1919
to the advent of the Fascist Corporate State as we
know it to-day. But it has been necessary to include
a brief recapitulation of Italian affairs long before
Fascism was ever heard of. This necessity arises from
the fact that Fascism is racy of the Italian soil and
people ; it has its roots in the particular circumstances
of Italian history ; it has grown in a pohtical atmos-
phere peculiar to Italy ; and it has a justification and
explanation rising out of racial temperament — a tem-
perament which is largely the heritage of Italy’s long
and complicated story. In this I have done no more

PREFACE

than indicate the fibres which bind Fascism into the
core of Italy.

In Part One the parties, policies, and conditions of
pre-war Italy are dealt with in some detail. Without
an appreciation of these, together with the role played
by Italy in the Great War, no understanding of
Fascism or the aims of Fascist Italy is possible.

Italy’s rise to world power is specially identified
with the development of foreign affairs ; but to follow
Mussolini’s foreign policy it is very necessary to begin
with an examination of Italian external affairs under
previous regimes, with particular attention to i88i
and 1915 — turning-points not only in Italian but in
European history — and with no less attention to the
crucial episodes of 1859 and 1918. The national emo-
tions which have their reactions in Italy’s decision in
1881-2 to form part of the Triple Alliance, the decision
to abandon that Alliance in 1915 (with the con-
comitant Secret Treaty of London), the chagrin of
the 1859 Peace of Villaffanca, and the disillusionment
of the 1918 Versailles and kindred treaties, provide
indicators which allow us to gauge the foreign policy
of Fascist Italy to-day and to-morrow. These things are
woven into the narrative of Part One of this book which
culminates with the 1933 Four-Power Pact of Rome.

Part Two deals with Fascism as a political philo-
sophy, and describes the means adopted to imbue the
people with its ethical ideas. Mussolini has expounded
his doctrine and Fascist political beliefs in a contri-
bution to the Enciclopedia Italiana. Through the
kindness of the Capo del Govemo and the Directors
of that publication, to whom I return my heartiest
thanks, I am able to include in these pages that
final and authoritative exposition.
viii

PREFACE

Part Three shows the Constitutional changes
wrought by the Revolution Government in order to
ensure the application of its principles ; it describes
the framework of the Corporate State ; and it gives the
measures taken to protect and perpetuate Fascismo.

I am only too conscious of the limitations of a book
which essays to cover such a comprehensive field.
Every chapter could well form matter for a whole
volume. Enough has been given, however, to give a
reasonably full description of events and ideas —
sufficient in any case to avoid unsupported generalisa-
tions.

In quoting Italian speeches and statements I have
given interpretative rather than literal translations.
With so many Italian words apparently similar to
English words, Italian is at once superficially easy
and profoundly difficult. The whole intent of a word
practically common in spelling to the two languages
has often a most different connotation. In such cases
it is its connotation rather than its translation which
I have sought out. But I have made one very impor-
tant exception with a word which occurs very often
in Fascist matters — disciplina. The word does not
mean “ discipline ” in the popular English sense of
an imposed chastisement as if by a schoolmaster or a
sergeant-major. In Italian, discipline connotes self-
respect combined with orderly unselfish behaviour as
an outcome of an educated sense of one’s responsibili-
ties to society. The word has not moved so far away
as our word from its Roman-Latin meaning. Having
failed to find a clear single-word substitute for disciplina
I have therefore just left it throughout the following
text as “ discipline,” but its real meaning should be
borne in mind.

PREFACE

The material here assembled is from 1919 onwards
mosdy based on (i) research in the files of the news-
papers of all colomrs contemporary with the events
described, (2) Ministerial and Party speeches and
manifestos, (3) Chamber and State documents,
(4) Grand Fascist Council resolutions, (5) Fascist,
non-Fascist and anti-Fascist publications, and (6) my
own despatches made during eleven years’ observation
and daily annotation on Italian affairs.

Fascism is so much the creation of Mussolini that
any history of it must perforce be a history of Musso-
lini. His name, thoughts, words and deeds therefore
run through this history just as they run through the
life of modern Italy, so that it is well-nigh impossible
to detach the movement from its master-mind.

I have sought throughout this work to offer no
speculation or extraneous comment, confining myself
to facts in an historical sequence of cause and effect.
Much of a polemical nature has been omitted where
such has not basically affected the progress of Fascism
and is therefore irrelevant to a constructive history of
the movement. In fact, my ambition has been not
only to record the progression of Italy to world power
through Fascism but to provide the reader with
enough material on which to form his own judgment
on the future potentialities of Fascism, seen in the light
of the present and the past.

I. S. M.

Sala. Stampa Estera,
Roue,

October 1933 .

CONTENTS

PACK

Preface vii

PART I. THE GROWTH OF FASCISM

THE SOIL

ITALY’S DIVIDED PAST (to 1870)

CHAPTER

I. Tangled Odyssey- 3

Fascist link with Dante and Virgil. Memories of Im-

E erial Greatness. Eleven Centuries of Division.

cventy Years of Unity. Victim of Histo^. Holy
Roman Empire. The Torch of Dante. Influence of
French Revolution. Napoleon’s Ital)t. The Habsburg
Yoke. Risorgimento. National Beginnings.

11 . The New-born Kingdom - - - - ii

Internal Differences. Effect on Parliament. The
Statute and the Church. Decadence of Party System.

Fascists as fulfillers of frustrated Risorgimento aims.

“ Unredeemed Italy ” in Austria’s Hands.

III. In the Play of the Powers - - - 17

First Foreign Relations. British traditional ROle of
Friendship. Disappointments with France. How
Italy lost Nice and Tunis. Why Italy joined the Triple
Alliance. Disillusionment with Austna and Germany.

Under heel of one and thumb of other.

THE SEEDS

PARTIES AND PARLIAMENT (1870-1915)

IV. Two Streams and a Bridge - - - 25

The Socialist Stream. Republican Beginnings. Italian
Minorities in Austria. Enter Mussolini. Strange Ultra-
Revolutionary Figure. He leads armed Socialist Re-
volt. Movement Quelled. The Nationalist Stream.
Reaction against Giolitti. Imperial Aims. Socialists’
and Nationalists’ Common Irrraentlst Aims. Gabriele

CONTENTS

CRAPTBR

d’Annunzio and the Futurists as connecting Link be-
tween Socialists of Extreme Left and Nationalists of
Extreme Right.

V. The Fateful Treaty of London

World War begins. Berlin’s Blunder. .Italy ignored
when Austria invades Serbia. Declares Neutrality,
Compensation Claims. Vienna’s Refusal. The En-
tente’s Bid. Secret Treaty of London signed. Its
Terms. Master-key to Fascist Foreign Pohey. Italy
breaks with the Central Powers.

VI. Italy joins the Allies - . - .

Nationalist Propaganda. Mussolini and War. Inter-
vention Demands. Mussolini expelled from Socialist
Party. The Popolo d’Jtalia. Fight against Neutrality.
Corradini and Corridoni. D’Annunzio’s Magical
Oratory. Italy declares War.

THE ROOTS

IN THE CRUCIBLE OF WAR (1915-1918)
VII. The Two Enemies

Foes at the Front and Foes in the Chamber. Untiring
Defeatist Pr^aganda. First Effects of Russian Revolu-
tion. The Turin Tumults. Country before Party.

VIII. A Glimpse at the Battlefields - - -

DifSculties of Terrain. Some Battle Figures. Inter-
ventionists in Action. Battisti Strangled. Corridoni
Killed. Marinetti, d’Annonzio, Mussolini Wounded,
Spirit of Fascism bom in the Trenches.

IX. The London Treaty qualified . - -

The 1915 Secret Treaty affected by U.S. Entry in the
War. The Succession States. Greek Mix-up. New
Russia. Turkish Spoils. Effect on Fascist Policy.

THE SAPUm

ONE AGAINST MANY (1918-1922)

X. Mussolini raises his Flag - . - -

The Rise of Socialism. Cabinet Divisions. Strike Era
logins. Socialist-Communist Bloc Founded, Musso-
lim’s First Faseio Founded. The San Scpolcro Con-
stituent. Its Programme. Labour and ex^Servicemen.
First Provincial Fasti. Consistency of First Economic
and Foreign Policy with Policy today. The Fascist
Objectives.

fcii

CONTENTS

iOAPTER

XI. Battles with the Reds - - . .

Red Terrorism. First Fascist Congress. Plans to
oppose Reds. Fascist and anti-Red Groups. Musso-
lini stands for Parliament. Not Elected. Arrested
instead. Strike-ridden Italy. Factories Seized. Com-
munists in Control. Inept Government. Pitched
Battles. Giolitti back in Power. He invites Fascist
Help. First Fascist Syndicate at Milan. Corporate
Idea takes Root. The Communists and Socialists
^lit. Government against the Fascists. The Diana
Theatre Massacre. Position in Alto Adige. Thirty-
three Fascists returned. Mussolini Deputy.

XII. Other Conflicts : against the Liberals,

the Clericals, the Masons - - -

Liberal-Democratic Idealists. Adulterated Principles.
Lack of Unity. Socialist Cohesion. Rise of Catholic
Popular Party. Don Sturzo’s Christian Socialism.
Its Fatal Demagogic Character. Italy the Dupe of
International Socialism. Masonic Rule. French In-
fluence. Nationalist Whole-hearted and cx-Service-
men’s Half-hearted Support of the Fascists.

XIII. The Debacle at Versailles

§ D’Annunzio Jumps a Claim

Peace Conference Hopes. Wilson the God-man. A
Shattered Idol. Italy’s Peace Claims. Complications
with Greece. The Response. “ Fiume or Death.”
The Italians dig Themselves in. Americans in Fiume.
Mussolini at Flume. D’Annunzio marches on Fiume.
Forms a “ Constitution,” Fantastic Style. Origin of
the Blackshirt. Giolitti back in Power. He creates
Fiume a corpus separatum. Consequent Conflicts.
Allied Conference on Fiume opened.

XIV. Mussolini enters Parliament - - -

His Place in the Chamber. Maiden Speech. Alto
Adige again. Foreign Affairs. He attacks Com-
munist Doctrines. Co-operation of Classes and Capital
and Labour foreshadowed. Roman Peace with Vati-
can also foreshadowed. He offers Factional Disarma-
ment. Fascism and Violence. Mussolini’s Rhetorical
Method. Clear Vision of the Future.

XV. Towards REVOLxmoN- - - . -

Resignation of Giolitti. Socialist Premier Bonomi.
6000 Fascists assail Ravenna. The Sarzana Ambush.
A Fascist-Socialist Truce. Fascist Split. Mussolini
resigns Office. Resignation rejected. Fascist Con-
gress convened, Mussolini insists on Unity as Price of

104

I16

125

xiii

CONTENTS

OHAPTIR PAQII

Leadersliip. Unity proclaimed. Mussolini returns.
Preparing to become a Regular Parliamentary Parly.

The Monarchy Question, Mussolini’s Views. Re-
publicanism jettisoned. Reasons. The Garibaldi
Parallel. The Army and the Industrialists. Liberal
Overtures. Udine Speech. Crystallization of Doc-
trines. Congress of Rome again. Fascists become an
Inscribed Party. The Communists’ Last Strike.

Broken by Blackshirts. Election of Achille Ratti as
Pope. Importance to History of Fascism : Reasons.

Facta becomes Premier. Nation depressed. Foreign
Policy F ailures . Mussolini ready for March on Rome.

XVI. The March on Rome - - - - 142

Mussolini given Full Party Powers. Blackshirt Activity
in the Alto Adige. The Position there. And in Naples.

“ Quadmmvirate ” appointed. Military Disposi-
tions. The Church’s Precaution. Fascist Diplomatic
Mission. Proclamation of Mobilisation. Its Assur-
ances. Facta orders State of Siege and Arrests.

Orders revoked. Contact with King. Mussolini
refuses a Portfolio. Blackshirts move on Rome.
Mussolini offered Premiership. Fascists enter Rome.
Mussolini accepts. First Audience with King. Speech
at Unknown Warrior’s Tomb. Mmsolini becomes
an International Figure. Demobilises his Troops.

Calls his First Cabinet Meeting.

THE TREE

MUSSOLINI TAKES OVER (igaa — )

XVII. First Speeches as Premier - - - 153

Collaboration Efforts. First Reforms and Changes.
Mussolini warns the Chamber. Home Policy. Key
Phrases. He speaks to the Senators on Liberalism.

On “ Constitutional Rails.” Blackshirt Militia
founded. Grand Fascist Council created. Movement
grows in General Popularity. Liberals lend Support
to Fascist Government. Polemical Issues. ’“Big
Stick ” Arguments. Comparative Calm.

XVIII. A New Tone in Foreign Affairs'^- 162

K^ Points from First Speech. Treaties. Debts.

A Word to Europe. A Warning to Turkey. En-
tente Relations put to the Test, Policy of “ Nothing
for Nothing.’^’ Uncertainty Abroad. Nationalist
Claims. Mussolini in London. King George and
Queen Mary in Rome. Conciliative Step with Ji^o-
slavia. Trade Treaty Policy. Deep but Unruffled
Waters. The First Gteturbance.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAOB

XIX. Guns at Corfu - - - - - r68

Italian Mission murdered in Albania. Mussolini
holds Greece Responsible. Ultimatum to Athens.

Corfu bombarded. Refugees hit. World and
Geneva Reaction. Greece accepts Italy’s Terms.

The Fium5 Crisis.

XX. Actions and Counter- actions - - 173

Unrest inside the Party, and without. Mussolini’s
Roxmd-up. “ Illegality ” Accusations. Italian
Masons. Freemasonry declared “ incompatible ”
with Fascism. Populars’ Trade Unions ousted.
Demands to disband Fascist Militia. “ Normalisa-
tion.” Fiume settled. General Elections. Opposi-
tion Disintegration. Fascist Victoty. Opposition
increases. Amcndola and Matteotti.

XXI. The Matteotti Set-baok - - - 183

The Kidnapping and Murder of Matteotti. Public
Horror. Fascist Action. Arrest of Suspects. Musso-
lini’s “ Solemn Oath.” exposition Opportunism.
Retirement to Aventine. The “ Moral Question.”
Mussolini outlines Reform. Farinacci. Eficct
Abroad. Murder of Casalini. Country begins to
rally back. Aventine Suicide. The Budget Balanced.

XXII. Mussolini retakes the Initiative - - 191

Mussolini claims Responsibility. Attacks Aventine.

Fascism becomes Absolute. Corporate State out-
lined. Capital and Labour both warned. Consti-
tutional Reform Commission. The Fascist “ Way of
Life.” “ The Goal is Empire.”

XXIII. War with the Anti-Fascists (1925-1927) 198

Beginning of FuoruscUi. Suppressive Legislation.
Freemasonry outlawed. The Zaniboni Plot. The
“ Matteotti Trial.” Negligible Sentences. Effect
Abroad. The Gibson Attempt on Mussolini. The
Lucetti Attempt. The Zamboni Attempt. Special
Defence of the State Tribunal inaugurated. Death
Sentence reintroduced. Confino revived. The Cham-
ber. Giolitti’s Last Phase. Street Scenes.

XXIV. In the Comity of Nations (1925-1927) - 21 1

Misrepresentation Abroad. The Real Bases. Nine
Points. The Alpine Gate. 'No Anschluss. Trade and
Arbitration Treaties. Sea Routes. Vis-4-iiis Jugo-
slavia. The Albanian Buffer. Policy with Succes-
sion States. DifiScultics with Belgrade. Grievances

CONTENTS

FAQ£

CaAPTER

with France ; Tangiers, Tunis, Libya, Fuorusciti.

Rising Place in World Affairs ; Debts, Reparations,
Disarmament, Treaty Revision, Tariffs, Five-Powei
Collaboration.

XXV. THEFASCISTSTATETAKESF0RMr{l925-I927) 227

{ uridical Construction of New State. Fundamental
.aws. Ten Basic Groups. Blackshirts’ Social Work.
Emigration Reform. Corporative Idea. Labour
Charter published. Fascist 1927 Figures. Secret
Negotiations with the Vatican.

XXVI. Bombs AND AN Olive Branch (1927-1933) 239

Attempt on the King, Terrorist attacks on Officials
Abroad. Attempt on Crown Prince. Schirru.
Sbardallotto. Bovone. Special Tribunal busy.
“Liberty and Justice.” Amnesty. Lipari demobi-
lised.

XXVII. An International Power (1927-1933) - 248

National and World Affairs. Italy’s Attitude
in 1928. Naval Talks with France. The Parity
Snag. Mr. Henderson’s Effort. Mussolini opens
World Appeal. “ Clean Slate ” plea to America.

Position m 1932. Rise of Hitler. Feeling against
Jugoslavia, Italy with France or Germany?
Four-Power Pact. New .daicWwj Peril. Mussolini’s
Reaction.

XXVIII. Peace and Polemics with the Ghuroh 272

The “ Roman Question ” ended. Lateran Treaties
and Concordat. Mussolini on Christian Rome.
Cavour’s Dream fulfilled. The Pope comes out.

Savoy. Education Quarrel. “ Catholic Action ”
accused. Polemics and Deadlock, Terms of
Settlement.

XXIX. Completion of the New Order— and

Beyond- - 281

Prestige. Fascists in Other Lands. Facing World
Crisis. Fascist Grand Council Statute. Election
System. Fascist Plebiscite. First Blackshirt
Parliament. Classic Reinvocation. Virgil linked
with Fascism. Development of the “ Universal
Idea.” Tenth Anniversary Classicism. Augustan
Peace. Universal Appeffi. Committee formed
for World Action.

CONTENTS

PART 11. THE PHILOSOPHY AND SPIRIT
OF FASCISM

CHAPTER FAGB

I. Doctrine 301

The Abstract Idea, System of Thought. Mussolini’s
Exposition of Fundamentals. His Thirteen Points ;
Philosophic, Spiritualised, Positive, Ethical, Religious,
Historical, Anti-Individual, Corporative, Anti-Demo-
cratic, the State, Dynamic, R6le of the State, Dis-
cipline.

II. POLITIOAL AND SOOIAL EtHICS - - - 3IO

Mussolini’s Further Exposition. Growth of Doctrine.

Peace and Nature. Battle of Life. Socialism answered.
Democracy. Liberalism in Histoiw. The Twentieth
Centu^ State. Religioii and the State, The Roman
Tradition. Universality claimed.

III. Doctrine into Cult 331

Revolution Idea kept alive. Symbolism. Altars and
Rites. " PresenU.” Histo^ exalted. Military Spirit
and Religious Formulas. The Decalogue. The Oath.

The Prayer. Ara Patna. “ The Book and the Rifle.”

“ Fascist Culture.” National Conscience.

PART III. FASCISM IN BEING

Introductory Note - - - - - -331

CBAPTKR

I. Constitutional Changes _ . . - 333

Special Powers to Prime Minister. He alone responsible
to King. Laws by Royal Decree. The Fascist Parly.

Its Organs. National Council Directory. Strength.

The Grand Council Constitution. Deliberative Func-
tions. Its Powers : Election Lists, Succession to Throne,
Prerogatives of Crowm Government and Foreign
Affairs, Succession to Capo del Govemo. Modali^ of
Royal Selection of Capo del Govemo. Recomposition
of Chamber. Election Methods. Senate. Academy.

II. Where State and Labour meet - - 340

Novel Features. Labour Charter. Labour Courts.
Employment and Welfare. Collec^ve Contracts.

Strikes and Lockouts Illegal. Sanctions. Syndical
Cate^ries. Ibegional Categories. Their Purpose.

The Corporations. Their Purpose. State and Lahour
Co-operation. National Coimcil.

COJ^TEMTS

OHAmR

III. Back to the Land

Public Works. Coping Slones instead of Foundation
Stones. Ten Years’ Work. Rural Policy. Mussolini
on “Back to the Land.” Bonifica Integrale. Its Aims
and Extent. Littoria. “Battle of the Grain.” 1033
Victory. “ Battle of Agriculture.” Moving to New
Conquests.

IV. Self-protegtion ------

R61e of the Militia. A Check on Secret Societies.
Provincial Control. Fuorusciti. Defence of the State
Tribunal. New Penal Code. Press Laws. Curbing
Opposition. Liberty of the Press. Mussolini’s Views.
Fascist Journalism.

V. The Fighting Forges

Unity of Command. Military and Political Co-ordina-
tion. Organisation of the Country for War. Civil
Mobilisation. Army Reform. Place of the Blackshirt
Militia. Navy Reform. Mobility and Speed. Rise of
the Air Force. Civil Aviation. Aviation Records. The
Agents of Reconstruction. Balbo’s Work and Theories.
New-Found Prestige.

VI. Teaching the Young Idea - - - -

The Gentile Reform. Versus Cultural Idealism.
Italian History super-ciMhasized. Religious teaching.
School Control and Extension. Professors’ Oath.
Balilla, Welfare Work. Summer Camps. Sport.
Dopolavoro. Olympic Standards. Workers’ Recreation.
Record of Progress.

VII. Perennial Stream - . . , .

The Rising Generations. Militia’s AU-important Task.
Annual Levy From Boys to Veterans. The Ceremony.
Consigning the Rifle. Fourteen Years’ Training in
Citizenship, Giovinizz<t kept Pristine.

VIII. Pater Patriae ------

Mussoliniana. More Arbiter than Dictator. Method
of Work. CoUateators. Endless Labour. Personal
Regime. Publicity. Aloof from Intimacy. Death of
Arnaldo. Odyssey of Thought in Action. The New
Faith,

Index

xvitt

PAQB

357

364

376

388

395

400

412

ILLUSTRATIONS

Frontispiece . The Shrine of Italy.

1. Apostle of Unity

FACIMO

11. For the Allied Cause

III. Fighting Days - - -

IV. A Poet in Arms - - -

iia

V. Before and After “ The March

on Rome

144

VI. Mussolini in London -

■

i66

VII. Il Duoe - - - -

iga

VIII. New Italy - - - -

232

IX. A Bid for Peace - - -

■

264

X. In the Shades of the Caesars

■

304

XL “Present” - - - -

••

384

XII. Labour’s Magna Gharta -

344

XIII. Back to the Land

360

XIV. Four Western Powers Agree to

orate ------

COLLAB-

368

XV. New Blood - - - -

396

MAPS

Front End-Paper

I. Italy and Mediterranean To-day.

Back End-Paper

II. The Frontiers Promised but not Wholly Granted,

III. Frontiers which Italy got by Peace Treaties.

THE SOIL

ITALY’S DIVIDED PAST

(to 1870)

“ Italy, is only a geographical expression.”

Mettermk^

CHAPTER I
TANGLED ODTSSET

Fascist link with Dante and Virgil. Memories of Imperial Greatness.
Eleven Centuries of Division. Seventy Tears of Unity. Victim of History,
Holy Roman Empire. The Torch of Dante. Influence of French
RevShilion. Napoleon's Italy. The Habsburg Take. Risorgimento.
National Beginnings.

I N order to understand the Fascist movement it Is
necessary to bring into focus the complicated back-
ground of Italian history, social and parliamentary.
In certain aspects Fascism stands as the vindicator of
patriotic ideds which have their first expression not
only in the Risorgimento but in mediaeval times. In
> the choice of symbol and in some of its later mani-
festations and tendencies Fascism definitely links itself
with Imperial Rome..

Illuminating as it may be to trace these threads
which reveal the continuity of pohtical aspirations,
the real value of recalling Italy’s past at this point lies
in another ditection. It serves to recall that Italy won
her political independence only after about eleven
hundred years of internal warfare and successive sub-
jugations which moulded conflicting racial character-
istics — characteristics which redoubled the difficulties
and dangers of Italian parliamentary life after a
national legislature had been finally achieved.

The social history of the Italian people is some two
thousand years old. Their parliamentary history we
can put dpwn as sixty years. It is indeed a case of old
wine in a pew bottle — and this is one view of the Italian

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

situation which must be remembered when studying
the ferment of Italian parliamentarianism which ended
in the Fascist explosion. Such considerations may
help to explain the reasons which handicapped the
authority of the pre-Revolution Governments and
made them unable to confront the modern crises
provoked by the world war, and will show the Fascist
reaction in historical perspective. A glance at the
past is relevant to scrutiny of a regime which frequently
invokes ancient trials and glories.

After the collapse of the Imperial influence of Rome,
the Dark Ages brought centuries of incredible con-
fusion dining which the Italian people were divided
among themselves under a shifting multiplicity of
foreign masters — Saracens, Carlings, Byzantines, Hun-
garians, Saxons, Franconians, and Normans, Now
and again figures hke Pipin, Berengario, or Hugh
of Provence emerge as Kings or Emperors of Italy,
but with crowns that are only tokens of factional
or temporary triumphs ; crowns that denote not
unity for Italy but division. Italy was the victim of
the Germanic notion of a Holy Roman Empire — an
entity which became “ neither Holy, nor Roman nor
an Empire.” That Empire split the peninsula into
fragmentary States which were used as stepping stones
for the easier transit of the Corpus Germanicum to the
source of its unifying idea — the Chair of St. Peter. It
reduced the national story of Italy into a series of
confusing footnotes to the history of Germany and
the Church, All hope of unity disappeared in the*
turmoil of crude diplomacy and fighting which led
up to the partisan wars of groups Hke Guelph and
Ghibelline. The Renaissance blossomed in an Italy
that was a bloodstained arena of dissension with

TANGLED ODTSSET

nearly all the races of Europe involved in adventures
of conquest.

At the moment of what is perhaps Italy’s fullest
political disintegratio n, the early years of the Four-
teenth Century, the figure of the first apostle of Italian
unity appears— ^afijte. — -His prophetic vision of hu-
manity and freedom ; the compass of his references to
Italian place-names, enshrining them in an Italy made
total and compact by the poetic inspiration of his
language ; his thought ; his choice of Virgil (fore-
teller of Rome as leader of the world) to be the shade
for ever by his side in the search for the straight
Roman way that was lost ; — these things struck a
patriotic spark, created a fiery star which became
a conflagration over five hundred years later at
the Risorgimento of the Nineteenth Century. i It is
a fire at which the Fascists of today still light their
torches* We shall see how the Blaclahirts closed the
anniversary of the Tenth Year of the Fascist Revolu-
tion with a ceremony at Dante’s tomb at Ravenna, on
September 14, 1933, with a declamation of the Fifth
Canto of the Inferno, the Sixth Canto of the Purga-
torio and the Sixth Canto of the Paradise , — Cantos
which mourn the unnatural divisions into which Italy
was divided, and recall the imperial destiny of Rome.
The idea of Rome as a predestined fount of universal
thought and rule is enshrined in Dante’s De Monarchia.
We shall hear the distant echoes of this theme in Mus-
solini’s utterances on the Rome of the Caesars and of
St. Petert Dante’s contemporary, Machiavelli, also
gave council to which Mussolini lends particular ear.
But Italy had still much agony to suffer before it
rallied in answer to the wakening cry of Dante or to
the advice of Machiavelli. The era following the

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

death of Dante wtnessed Italy rent in civil wars
among the condottieri — the warrior chiefs who made
the provincial capitals into strongholds of mercenary
troops j and the close of the Middle Ages saw the
beginning of those combinations which were to cul-
minate in the Eighteenth Century with the establish-
ment of Austrian, Spanish and French rulers in Italy,
sometimes as direct overlords, sometimes as the sacred
allies of the Vatican — ^the fighting arm with which
successive Pontiffs either directly or indirectly main-
tained temporal power over the Papal States covering
the central third of the Italian peninsula.

The French Revolution had no second wave in
Italy. It only served for the time being to bind tighter
the bonds of the alien monarchies on the Italian race.
In reaction, secret societies were formed to discuss
these heady new notions of national liberty and per-
sonal equality. Associations were clandestinely formed
for the propagation of the revolutionary creeiTof the
" rights of man.” But the arms of Austria^nd othe"?
throned powers were too strong for the sapling shoots
of revolutionary ideas. Spies and secret police soon
routed out the members of these conspiratorial organ-
isations, and prison swallowed them. A definite in-
fluence however was created : an influence surpris-
ingly moderate in tone. The extreme left of Italian
political thought at that epoch was equivalent to the
extreme right of the French legislature.

The rise of Napoleon and his assumption of an
Italian crown seemed at first an internal affair of
Napoleon’s policy of Continental hegemdtiy, and his
coronation as Emperor merely the ironical emphasis
of his policy. The event, however, proved to be of
immense importance to the Italians. As a people

TANGLED ODTSSET

they had no national liberty to lose, and Napoleon’s
recognition that they were capable of self-government
led to the granting of institutions based on Liberal
ideas and gave the country its first taste of relative
political liberty, fie also extended Italy’s northern
frontier in i8ii almost as far as Merano. Mussolini
on more than one public occasion has asserted the
“ Italianity ” of Napoleon ; but I have never seen
used what is perhaps the most potent complementary
evidence of that “ Italianity,” namely, the particular
beneficence of his rule in Italy. It has justly been
desc|i!^ed as liberal and enlightened. The fall of
Napoleon and the Treaty of V^nona however recon-
firmed the division of the Italian peninsula once again
under the yokes of the Habsburgs, the Church and
the Bourbons. The i8ii Alpine firontier was swept
away.

Momentary hopes of liberal progress were raised
in the Papal States and in the Bourbon south, but
these only served as a warning to Austria for an exten-
sion and intensification of her tyranny in the north.
But the spark flashed by Dante was now being fanned
into spurts of flame by Mazzini. The sympathy and
help given to Italians by Britain at this period has
never been forgotten. It began that tradition of Italo-
British firiendship which remains a corner-stone of
Italian foreign policy today. Mazzini and Garibaldi
in their dreams of Italian unity saw political salvation!
in republicanism. Revolts began sporadically, and
soon the Risorgiraento — the Re-uprising — ^was in full
flame. In succession, with many fluctuations of
fortune and, be it noted, with several basic differences
of aims and ideas dividing the insurgents themselves,
the foreign usurpers were at last practically on the run.

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

The Republican fervour of the liberating hero,
Garibaldi, was deviated into new and more powerful
channels by the intervention of Victor Emmanuel,
Prince of Piedmont, on the side of the insurgents. The
Republican and Monarchical tributaries were united
in a rising torrent which swept away foreign domina-
tion from Italian sod. Under the long-sighted states-
manship of Cavour it was a monarchy that was ulti-
mately established, and by i86i two-thirds of the
peninsula was a single kingdom, with Victor Emman-
uel first real King of Italy, and Turin his capital,

Venice, the Trentino, Istria, Dalmatia, and the
Papal States — all these forming part of the redemp-
'tionist programme — had not yet been redeemed. It
is a somewhat common belief among those not familiar
with Italian history that the present frontiers of Italy,
encircling the old Southern Tyrol (now known as
Alto Adige) and Istria, represent an opportunist post-
war acquisition of Austrian lands which had never
hitherto come within the range of Italian aspirations.
It is not my province or intention to discuss the ques-
tion of the rights or wrongs of the new acquisition, but
it should be noted that Italy’s claims go deep into
Italian history. The Liberal apostle Mazzini declared,
“ Ours — if ever land was ours — is the Trentino. Ours
are the inner Alps and ours are all the waters that
descend to pour themselves into the Adige and the
Gulf of Venice.” Garibaldi was recalled from a march
of conquest into these regions — an order from his new-
found King which he reluctantly answered with his
famous one-word telegram which spoke volumes,
Obbedisco, “ I Obey.”

The flame was kept alive in 1896 by the erection of
the national monument to Dante, not in his native

TANGLED ODYSSEY

Florence, but at Trento, in the heart of the unredeemed
Provinces,

It was Dante who immortalised Istria as Italy’s
frontier :

“ SI com’ a Pola presso del Quarnaro
Che Italia chiude e i suoi termini bagna.”

This is an example of just one of the many threads
which run unbroken through the whole complicated
history of the Italian people right up to the present
day. The first Fascist conflicts arose out of post-war
pro-Austrian manifestations in these north and north-
eastern frontier regions ; and Mussohni’s policy of
preventing the Austro-German Anschluss is the latest
expression of an Alpine problem as old as Italy
itself.

The partial triumph of i86i was followed by a
decade of revolts, repressions, risings and propaganda
in these unrecovered provinces together with intrigues,
aUiances, campaigns, treaties, plots and counterplots
in which the new Kingdom of Italy, France, Austria,
the Pope, and Prussia were all actively involved.
Venice was at last restored to Italy by Austria, and
the stronghold of the Papal States, Rome, was victori-
ously entered by the Italian national troops on Sep-
tember 20, 1870. The Italian capital had meantime
been moved from Turin to Florence, partly to alleviate
inter-provincial jealousies, but mostly to symbolise “ a
step nearer Rome,” In 1872, Victor Emmanuel as
King of an Italy, which at last comprised the whole
peninsula except its Alpine doorways, made his
solemn entry into his coxmtry’s capital, Rome.

The vision of Virgil glimmered once more on the
horizon of Italy’s imagination.

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

Such was the tangled Odyssey of the Italian people
in their progress to national unity. The sum of their
distracting and inchoate history marks the inheritance
of the first Italian governments. Their task was to
govern and at the same time to reconcile the anomalies
of their aooo-year-old network of social histories — each
with their own demands and traditions — with the
exigencies of a new-found common parliamentary
system.

In the following chapter we will examine what
befell, and trace accordingly the beginnings of those
circumstances which were later to find expression
in the Fascist revolt.

GHAPTER II

THE NEW-BORN KINGDOM

Internal Differences. Effect on Parliament. The Statute and the
Church. Decadence of Party System. Fascists as Fulfillers of Frustrated
Risorgimento Aims. “ Unredeemed ” Italy in Austrian Hands.

A S may be seen from the first chapter, the young
Government of the new-born Kingdom of Italy
began its work in 1871 with the following complica-
tion of handicaps to smooth running :

It represented profound traditions of culture but no parlia-
mentary experience whatsoever.

It represented a complexity of conflicting internal interests
with intermediate sub-traditions and habits of peoples,
language, temperament, history and requirements arising
out of the sectional isolation of the race under centuries
of foreign rule.

It inherited the unresolved problems of the Trentino,
Eastern Friuli and Trieste (Venezia Giulia) and Dalmatia, —
all of which had formed an integral part of the Risorgimento
programme of deliverance.

It therefore inherited a “ traditional ” enemy, Habsburg
Austria.

The new Italian Government established itself by force in
a capital which also remained the capital of the Power it
had defeated — the Roman Catholic Church.

It represented a new-born nation against whom great
Church or Continental alliances might be formed.

It represented a nation whose large majority accepted the
religious dogmas of a Church which it pohticaUy opposed
and had bitterly antagonised.

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

It represented thinkers and soldiers, very many of whom
had fought for a Republic with passion and accepted a
Monarchy as an expedient.

It represented a country, sections of which had ancient
Republican memories of local independence and glory— like
Genoa and Venice.

It represented a people whose loyalty to the new-found
regime was anchored, so far, only to the abstract ideas of
political emancipation and national self-determination.

The Constitution on which the new Kingdom was
based was “ il Statuto” promulgated on March 4,
18485 by Charles Albert of Piedmont. It is interest-
ing to note here one of the several strange anomalies
of Italian history : the first Article of this Statute
which formed the political rallying-point for Italy’s
successful opposition to the sovereignty of the Popes,
nevertheless declares that “ the Catholic, ApostoHc
and Roman religion is the sole religion of the State.”
Other religions were ” tolerated.”

The Church, of course, did not recognise the King-
dom of Italy nor the sovereignty of the House of Savoy.
That recognition did not come tmtil the Lateran
Treaty of 1929.

The Statute of 1848 contains very generalised
Articles touching the duties of the Monarchy, the
responsibility of Ministers to the Grown and the rights
of citizens. It became the point of reference for the
mass of laws which gradually accumulated around it,
known, in bulk, as the Constitution. This incrusta-
tion of laws consisted largely of measures enshrining
the newly-accepted principles of democracy — ^the
rights of man, the right of assembly, the liberty
of the Press and rule by majority vote. These
were the labels on the new bottles into which the
12

THE MEW-BORN KINGDOM

old wine was poured. The results were immediately
apparent,

•The first phenomenon was the rise and fall of the
party system. Although they modelled their parlia-
mentary procedure on the British system, the form
rather than the spirit influenced the Italian pioneers ;
the essential safeguard of the two-party system was
ignored. Compact national government was there-
fore almost at the outset stifled and choked by the
rank growth of a multiplicity of parties and groups
whose programmes in many cases were more con-
cerned with the heterogeneous and conflicting interests
of the country, indicated at the opening of this chap-
ter, than with the duty of governing the nation as
a whole. This division of attention was coupled
with vigorous explorations in ever new fields of poli-
tical thought.

Almost at once there began (in the ’Seventies)
what was dubbed il sistema di trasfomazione — the game
of merging and fading out party convictions to suit
the political atmosphere of the moment. This meant
the beginning of what became a chronic state of aflfairs
in which no party could maintain a parliamentary
majority without shedding some of its principles in
order to gain the benefi.t of votes given to other parties
and groups, each of which had also of course to make
their respective sacrifices.

The “ transformation system ” however had one
thing in its favour ; it allowed Ministers with special-
ized knowledge in finance or foreign affairs to live
through several Ministries, In the first crucial twelve
months of the national Government’s existence there
were four Cabinet crises. In the first twenty-five years
eighteen new Cabinets took successive office. When

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

Mussolini took over in October 1922 his Cabinet was
the sixty-seventh since the foundation of the Constitu-
tion in 1848 — sbcty-seven changes of Government in
seventy-four years. These continual parliamentary
crises made the Italian people victims of the fallacy
which shelters behind the practice or rather the mal-
practice of democratic forms of Government. The
party elected could practically never represent a ma-
jority, and the programme presented for the suffrage
of the voters could never therefore be applied. Inter-
mittent experiments with proportional representation
came too late, for politics had become a profession
and proportional representation and such essays merely
moves in electoral campaigns.

Italians quickly learned that a majority bloc meant
power and opportunity for the advancement of one
particular set of interests at the expense of others. The
election booth became a thing of vital importance to
vested interests. Cabinets fortified themselves with
Subsidiary coalitions engineered in the lobbies of the
Chamber. The fruits were to the victor. Politics
became an end in themselves. The notion of national
service which had inspired the Risorgimento changed
for a parliamentarianism whose horizon was bounded
by the inside walls of the two Chambers. Great men,
patriots and statesmen, stood qs national figures above'
the miUe of parties ; but they too, in self-subjection
to the principles of democracy, had perforce to have
their feet in the clay-fields of parliamentarianism.

This disturbed manner of government buffeted
along without undue danger to Italy until Italy’s
participation in the Great War. It continued during
the war — to the grave embarrassment of Italian arma
and to the impetidment of Italian cohesion. It stag*
H

THE NEW-BORN KINGDOM

gered in face of the post-war social upheaval. Before
the positivism of Mussolini the system collapsed.

»It is of course not to be imagined that the pohtical
programmes advocated by aU these parties of the pre-
Fascist days were bad and only the Blackshirt pro-
gramme of today good ! Patriotic and humane ideal-
ism was behind them with few notable exceptions.
The trouble was that the democratic system as oper-
ated in Italy obviated the possibiUty of any one pro-
gramme getting a reasonably continuous triah The
economic conflict of north and south also still further
handicapped progress.

Despite these things the foundations of modem
Italy were laid. The merit of much of the work carried
out by the Fascists lies in the fact that they are the
executors of projects planned by the old regimes, but
frustrated in execution by the exigencies of their sys-
tem. In later chapters it will also be seen that the
Fascists were not the only ones who suffered thrash-
ings and death for political principles. Liberalism
and all it connotes played a great and noble part
in the building of Italy ; but it opened the doors to
forces which in its name were threatening Italy with
chaos. Liberalism, as exercised in Italy, had out-
played its part when Fascism took over. It could no
longer govern. Giolitti experimented by playing off
one armed party against another to allow him some
chance of getting on with the task of governing. Musso-
lini is taking no risks. He has a Fascist army.

I am inclined to think that the post-Risorgimento
importance of the relations between Church and
State — the so-called Roman Question — ^has been over-
emphasized by most historians. After the first shock
to the Catholic world, Italy’s seizure of Rome was

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

looked on as a fait accompli, and left at that. None of
the Great Catholic Powers were in a position to rally
to the help of the Pontificate for the restoration of tem-
poral powers. Refusing to acknowledge the unilateral
Law of Guarantees drawn up by the Italian Govern-
ment, the dispossessed Pope, Pius IX., decided to de-
clare himself a voluntary prisoner in the Vatican.
Among other unacceptable conditions the Law of
Guarantees stated that the Church, instead of possess-
ing the Vatican, St. Peter’s and other stipulated
ecclesiastical buildings, only “ enjoyed ” possession —
a word which stripped the Papacy of sovereign rule.

‘Successive Popes reconfiirmed the decision of Pius
IX. ; but although the Roman Question was thus
always very present in the minds of the people and of
successive Governments, its reactions led more to am-
biguities and makeshifts than to any definite trend in
politics. Its real importance lay in its moral and not
in its political implications. Neither Garibaldi nor
Gavour wanted to qucurrel with their faith nor to
alienate a people from its Church. It is reported of
Gavour that, nearing his death without having accom-
plished any hopeful step towards a conciliatory ar-
rangement between the ancient Church and the infant
State, he anxiously asked the Church mediator ‘ ‘ to bring
him an olive branch before Easter.” The F ascists com-
pleted this gesture. After the 1929 Lateran Peace
between Church and State, Mussolini had a bronze
ohve emblem placed on Gavour’s grave, engraved
with “From Fascist Italy to GairuUo Gavour.”

The rise of a new generation, detached from the
anticlerical passions' of the Risorgimento, paved the
way for rapprochement overtures which ultimately came
to full finiition under the Fascist regime,

CHAPTER III

IN THE PLAY OF THE POWERS

First Foreign Relations. British Traditional RSle of Friendship. Dis-
appointments with France. How Ital^ lost Mice and Tunis. Why Italy
joined the Triple Alliance. Disillusionment with Austria and Germany.
Under Heel oj One and Thumb of Other.

F rance, Prussia and England all played parts in
helping the Italian people towards independence.
England played a quiet moral r6le. Her shores be-
came synonymous with harbourage for Italian idealists
and political exiles. Palmerston and Gladstone by
correspondence and encouragement, influenced the
minds of Italian patriots in admiration of our political
institutions. After the establishment of the Kingdom,
England however held aloof from further identifica-
tion with Italian aims and ambitions except to recog-
nise Italy’s interest in the Mediterranean. England
was too remote and isolated to venture with help
against Austria. True she invited Italian co-operation
in the Egyptian expedition project of 1882, but by that
time Italy had already reorientated her foreign active
relations on the European map and the offer was not
accepted, save as an acceptable sign of acquired
prestige.

England’s feelings of goodwill towards Italy never
at any time suffered diminution, and Anglo-Italian
relations between 1870 and 1914, remained imdis-
turbed. As Allies in the Great War the fiiendship was
signed with blood and sacrifice and has since con-
tinued, officially and unofficially, unimpaired.

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

Italian relations with France and Germany on the
other hand followed an erratic course and provide
reasons for Italy’s attitude in the Great War, and in
matters of current affairs.

In 1858, Napoleon III. and Victor Emmanuel II.
joined forces to drive the Austrians from Venezia
Giulia and Lombardy. The bargain was that in
return for the restoration of these two provinces to
Italy, the Duchy of Savoy and the Commune of
Nice were to be ceded to France. Lombardy was
taken, when Napoleon III. suddenly signed an armis-
tice with Austria which left Venetia in Austrian hands.
The armistice of Villafranca in 1859 came as a sharp
disillusionment to the Italians. The human back-
ground and dramatic reactions of this Villafranca
peace are brought out in Mussolini’s play of that
name. The bitterness against France was not lessened
by Napoleon III.’s insistence on the receipt of Savoy
and Nice, and in continuing to occupy Rome with
his troops as the iron hand of the Pontiff.

Just as Italy was gradually becoming united under
the crown of Savoy, thanks to the policy of Gavour,
so was Germany being united under the sceptre of
Prussia, owing to the policy of Bismarck. Bismarck
saw possibilities in the new southern Kingdom and it
was with the aid of Prussian arms that the Austrians
were driven out of Venetia, in the completed cam-
paign of 1866. The frontier line however was a vul-
nerable one for Italy. There only now remained
“ unredeemed ” the Alpine Trentino, Trieste and
Dalmatia. It was the Prussian invasion of France in
1870 that caused the speedy withdrawal of the French
troops in Rome for the defence of France. It was this
withdrawal which facilitated the immediate capture
i8

IN THE PLAY OF THE POWERS

of Rome and the deposition of the Pope as a tem-
poral sovereign.

In the same year when Victor Emmanuel became
King of a united Italy, the HohenzoUerns assumed the
Imperial crown of a united Germany.

The next act in the drama of the Italo-Franco-
German triangle comes with the development in 1878
of an Italian Mediterranean policy. Italy had already
a large colony of Italians in Tunis and, as a legacy
from the old Kingdom of Sardinia and the Two
Sicilies, it had inherited colonising agreements with
the somewhat accommodating Bey, There was how-
ever also a colony of Frenchmen. It was numerically
smaller than the Italian colony, but France was a
stronger striking power.

In 1881 French troops, in course of a punitive
raid against Arabs who had entered Algeria, occupied
Tunis with a simple coup de main and established a Pro-
tectorate. Italy was outwitted. She turned to her
old friend Prussia, or as Prussia now was, Germany.
There was one embarrassing difficulty however. Ger-
many had now knit Austria into close and indestruct-
ible alliance — and Austria was Italy’s hereditary
enemy. But Bismarck made it clear that any Rome-
Berlin pact could only be part of a Rome- Vienna
pact. Driven out of any possible rapprochement with
France on account of the Tunis affair and isolated at
the mercy of Europe, Italy accepted the bargain. In
1882 the Triple Alliance between Italy, Germany and
Austria was signed — an Alliance only broken in the
opening stages of the Great War,

As a result of this Alliance Italy acquired importance
in the concert of Europe. But her most sinister adver-
saries were her new-foimd friends. No force of arms

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

was used to re-establish her position in Tunis. With
a grudging modus vivendi series of agreements, the
Italo-French position dragged on, Italy turned to
other North African and Red Sea extensions and laid,
after several set-backs, the foundations of her Tripoli,
Gyrenaica and Somaliland colonies.

We have seen how France gave Italy abrupt dis-
ihusionments at Villafranca and Tunis. The Ger-
mano-Austrian disillusionment had a different char-
acter. It was creepingly slow ; and the reaction was
consequently more deadly. It was soon made clear
that Italy was only a tolerated member of the Triple
Alliance. Instead of ameliorating the traditional
grievances of the Italian “ unredeemed ” areas, con-
ditions from the Italian point of view were worsened.
Italy’s furthest north became virtually a vassal zone.
The whole strength of the pan-German movement
was concentrated on the infiltration and dominance
of German culture. These Alpine valleys lay in the
track of the Mittel-Europa push. The Allgemeiner
Deutscher Schulverein, the Tiroler Volksbund, the Sudmark
and similar organizations coerced and tempted Italian
culture out of the way. At Vienna, the Habsburg
, policy of playing off one part of the Austro-Hun-
I garian Empire against another was devoted at Trieste
'] and in Dalmatia to inflaming Slav sentiments against
Italy. Italian irredentist endeavours re-flared up in
reply. Incidents and assassinations punctuated rela-
tions between these strange “ allies.”

Apart from these local sores, the Alliance with Ber-
lin and Vienna led to another more subtle and under-
mining national danger. Germany’s policy of ‘ ' peace-
ful penetration ” brought commercial prosperity to
Italy’s industrial north, but at the expense of industrial
20

m THE PLAT OF THE POWERS

independence and moral. German capital manipu-
lated Italy. The establishment by Germany of the
Banca CommerciaU in 1895 was the final seal of Ger-
man control, which from then on made its influence
felt even in the internal administration and Press of
the country. The development of this policy natur-
ally made some Italians and some regions extremely
rich. There was nothing openly hostile in this infil-
tration. Indeed to those in the swim it was pleasant
and profitable. And with the type of multiparty
Government described in the last chapter there was
no initiative strong enough to check control in the
name of the Italian nation. There was no animus
against the Germans. They made good business for
the north-central provinces. Any angry feeling that
existed was confined to the Austrians.

Italy was under the thumb of her German ally and
under the heel of her Austrian ally. That was the
position in 1914. ‘

THE SEEDS

PARTIES AND PARLIAMENT

^1870-1915)

“ It is not with words that States are held."

Machiavelli

CHAPTER IV

TWO STREAMS AND A BRIDGE

The Socialist Stream. Republican Beginnings. Italian Minorities in
Austria. Enter Mussolini. Strange Ultra-revolutionary Figure. He
leads Armed Socialist Revolt. Movement quelled. The Nationalist
Stream. Reaction against Giolitti. Imperial Aims. Socialists' and
Nationalists' Common Irridentist Aims, Gabriele d’Annunzio and the
Futurists as Connecting Link between Socialists of Extreme Left and
Nationalists of Extreme Right.

I N the milange of parties, policies and interests de-
picted in the preceding narrative there were
two particular streams of political evolution which
were destined to be of fundamental importance
to the theory and practice of Fascism. These two
streams were Socialism and Nationalism. All the
seemingly contradictory factors in the Fascist experi-
ment can be traced to these sources. Orthodox
Socialism and orthodox Nationalism are incompatible
as political theories. *It is safe to say that had there
been no Mussolini there could have been no reconcilia-
tion of any of the principles which form the driving
force of these two elements. It was from a fusion of the
social teachings of Socialism and Nationalism that the
F ascism of Mussolini was evolved. But this fusion was
no sudden idea. It had nothing akin to the oppor-
tunist system of trctsformazione^

At the very time before the war when Socialism and
Nationalism were moulding the ideas which were to
find their full expression in modern Fascism they and
their exponents were mercilessly hostile to each other.

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

Both were battling with Italy’s problems, but for
different reasons and by different routes of attack —
differences which brought them into conflict with
each other. Mussolini’s line of political education and
battle was along the Socialist route. It was his enquir-
ing mind and dynamic personality that wrested Italian
Socialism out of its orthodox stratum. » The history
of Socialism in Italy provides the key to the history of
Mussolini, and the history of Mussolini is of course the
history of Fascism# An examination of these two facts
explains much.

One of the most significant characteristics of the
Left wing of Italian political history is the diffidence
with which the international aspects of Socialism
were received, and the enthusiasm with which the
purely social principles, as far as they affected the
workers and the under-dog, were welcomed. As
far back as 1871 workers’ confraternities were formed
to oppose internationalism and to fight their own
social claims against Italian masters represented
by the Parties of the Right, and the Italian middle
classes represented by the Democratic parties of the
Centre.

It is significant that in these early manifestations the
embryo Italian Socialists found themselves ranged by
the logic of things alongside the Republicans. As
already recorded, these early Repubhcans were no
wild destroyers. They represented a patriotic group
whose principles had been dead-ended by a Constitu-
tion secured by a majority vote. After the establish-
ment of the monarchy they became a respected
political anachronism. But having by the turn of
affairs become the Left, it was along their line of life
that Socialism made its appearance.
s6

rm STREAMS AND A BRIDGE

With the development however of the industrial
revolution in Europe, international Socialism began
to spread in earnest. From being exclusively an agri-
cultural and artisan country, the north of Italy became
the workshop of all Italy, a centre where workers were
intelligent and cheap. The lack of raw materials pre-
cipitated economic difficulties which reacted un-
favourably on the working classes who were often ex-
ploited. Isolated industrial spots hi the south, such as
the sulphur mines of Sicily, also suffered the effects of
exploitation. Farm labourers were sweated.

International Socialism, carrying the old fabric of
Republicanism, crept over a land where confidence
in parliament had become weakened to vanishing
point with a succession of economic scandals, broken
promises and election tricks. By the ’Eighties an
epoch of revolt, strikes, repression and imprisonment
had begun.

Moving from extreme to extreme in its opposition
to Parliament as the exponent of Constitutionalism, the
ranks of the International Socialists were augmented
by Anarchists ; and Republicanism moving ever to
the Left became definitely subversive.

In 1892 however the Italian Socialists threw over
the Anarchists and formed the Italian Socialist Party,
introducing class warfare as its basis of action. The
main stream of Republicans, as a tributary of the
Left, followed the coiuse of the new Socialist Party.
The Sociafists disliked monarchical rule on general
principle, for to them any crown was a symbol of
capitalist class exploitation. The Italian Republicans
disliked monarchical rule because, by Party inheri-
tance from the Risorgimento, they associated it with
the oppression suffered by the Italian people under

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

the Bourbons, Popes and Habsburgs. When the two
streams of Republicanism and Socialism merged into
one, the salvation of the Italian minorities in Austria
became one of their avenues of most passionate propa-
ganda. Without intention they became the champions
of Italian nationalism and expansion, for only the
extension of Italy’s boundaries could envisage the
liberation of the Italian minorities. In short, the Left
had, in this matter, become the champions of the
extreme section of the programme of the Right — a
sacred section of programme which had been lost
sight of by the Right in the parliamentary decadence
already described.

But this Socialist Left was seldom at peace with it-
self. It spUt and re-split on the international issue ;
it split when confronted by any problem ; it split on
questions of internal reform ; on questions of policy,
theory and practice. And it shot off in bits before
the impact of the new politico-philosophic conceptions
then rousing men’s minds. Fragments of the party
hitched their wagons to the intellectual meteors of
Marx, Sorel and Bergson.

The first general strike in Italy was in 1904 and it
had its ignition point in a temperamental clash of
theories between “ reformist ” and non-reformist
Socialists. It is from this time onwards that we get
glimpses in the Socialist ranks of a strange, eager, in-
tolerant, ultra-revolutionary figure — ^in full tilt at the
social order — a certain Benito Mussolini. Bom of
Romagna fighting stock, son of a father who was
reputed to be a member of the First International ;
christened Benito in tribute to Benito Juarez, the
Mexican revolutionary ; brought up in a Province
beset with agricultural labour agitation ; an avid
28

TWO STREAMS AND A BRIDGE

reader and searcher after new political gods, Mussolini
brought strange lightenings into the stormy bosom of
the Italian Socialist Party. Anti-clerical, anti-
church, anti-monarchical, anti-constitutional, anti-
democratic, anti-masonic, anti-nationaUst, anti-col-
onist, he was anti-everything that savoured of the
established order, including the reformist elements of
his own Socialist Party. Mussolini as a youth was edu-
cated as a village schoolmaster. He later studied at
Geneva under conditions of cold penury that make
the traditional old-school Scots student’s career seem
munificent. In Switzerland he drank in Nietzsche
and Nihilism ; bent the rigidity of Marxism with the
violence of Sorel ; streaked their materialism with the
mysticism and waywardness of Schopenhauer : con-
trasted Bergson and Buddha and studied the subtleties
of Machiavelli. In igog he went to Trent and there
met and worked with Cesare Battisti, the irredentist
martyr. Under the influence of Battisti, Mussolini
became definitely irredentist, that is to say, he joined
those who advocated the restoration to Italy not only
of all Italians but of all districts where the Italian
language was spoken. During this period Mussolini
exposed the tyranny of Habsburg Austria in his writ-
ings, and laboured for the salvation of the Italian
minority in Austrian hands. He added flaming sparks
of racial patriotism to the turmoil of his restless revo-
lutionary thoughts. Expelled from Austria he returned
to Italy ; became editor of the Socialist Avanti^ ” For-
ward ” ; opposed Italy ; opposed Austria ; opposed
the Tripoli war of igi i ; opposed fellow Socialists who
visited the King ; opposed Parliament and all its
parties ; fought duels ; organized strikes, led armed
attacks ; wrote pamphlets, polemics, novels, poetry

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

and planned plays — all of them knocking down estab-
lished gods ; action first, last and all the time, with
respite only when jailed. “ I have been imprisoned
eleven times,” Mussolini told Emil Ludwig. “ In
Berne, Lausanne, Geneva, Trent, Forli and several
other places. And every time it was the same inter-
val of repose that I would not have given up of my
own free will ! ”

The drive of his tumultuous thoughts split up the
party. In 1913 his notions began to be defined as
“ idealism,” not because they were ideals but because
in the prevailing order of things they were considered
unreachable. Nevertheless Mussolini in the autumn
of 1913 was nominated Socialist parliamentary candi-
date for the constituency of Forli, his native cormtry.
He failed to win the election ; and his brand
of idealism was thereafter condemned by official
Socialism. He was a man testing everything and
throwing everything aside, yet always absorbing what
lessons everything and anything could teach him.
He was searching for new foundations — that was his
idealism.

By 1914 Mussolini became the dictator of revolu-
tionary Socialism. In the doctrines of proletarian in-
surrection and syndicalist direct action preached by
Sorel, Mussolini found a solution, or thought he had,
which answered his own eruptive temperament.

The extremists of the extreme rallied around him —
fighting Socialists, out-and-out Republicans, Anarch-
ists and Syndicalists — the Reds of the epoch. In June
1914 they launched an armed revolt against the State.
After a clamorous Congress of Socialists in Ancona,
the revolt broke out’on June 1 2 and what are known
as the “ Red days ” began, A railway and a general

TWO STREAMS AND A BRIDGE

strike was proclaimed. Riots, mob warfare and
barricade fights were staged in Ancona, Milan, Rome,
Florence and elsewhere. Casualties among the Social-
ists and among the soldiers called out to repell them
were many, but the total of fatal casualties were sur-
prisingly few — about twenty — considering the extent
of the rising and the fact that sometimes the demon-
strators totalled about twenty thousand. The King’s
Palace at the Quirinal was guarded by troops,

In the face of this menace the Chamber adjourned
for want of the legal number of members present to
deal with the situation. And when it did open, the
Socialists demanded its closmre as a sign of mourning
for their dead. This movement however was quickly
quelled to a luU by Government measures, but the
revolution simmered until the outbreak of the Great
War confi'onted the Socialists and Mussolini with new
complications.

The violence of the Socialists’ reaction however had
driven fi:om office a Premier who for twenty-tv'O years
had dominated Italian parliamentary Hfe — Giovanni
Giolitti. A specialist in party warfare, he jockeyed the
Centre parties to his will and exercised a \artual dicta-
torship over the Italian people with a severity scarcely
exceeded in Fascist times. But his outlook was that of
a shrewd electioneering agent. Parliament was his
chessboard and the game was office. He had a genius
for foreseeing crises — and resigning before they broke.
Working behind the scenes he would at his well-chosen
moment take up the reins again as the acclaimed
saviour of the country fi:om the crises which Ids policy
and speculative party alliances had provoked. He
professed and exercised no interest in foreign affairs.
He was the master of a Centre whose liberalism

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

bartered away all principles in the market of com-
promise. He was the personification of the parliamen-
tary generation which succeeded the heroic age of the
Eisorgimento— the generation which provoked the
Fascist recovery of Italy.

While the Socialist-Republican Left was assailing
the principles of democratic government and the au-
thority of the State, there came into being a party of
the Extreme Right which attacked not the principles
but the practice of democracy as exercised in Italy.
This was the Nationalist group. From mostly Floren-
tine beginnings about 1903 the Nationalists coalesced
into an official party in 1911. • Disgusted with Parlia-
ment’s neglect of the interests of the country as a
patriotic national entity and further disgusted with
the weakness of Parliament’s colonial and foreign
policy, this party became the champion of an aggres-
sive conservative policy with Mediterranean expansion
and Adriatic recovery as its watchwords^

In its expansionist programme it had the unqualified
opposition of all Socialists. In its recovery programme
its aims overlapped those of the Socialist-Irridentist
groups — though the Socialists thought of this problem
basically in social terms, while the Nationalists thought
of it in territorial terras, like the old Republicans.
Indeed the Nationalists professed themselves the
champions of the Risorgimento programme. But in
the sheer exuberance of reaction the Nationalists went
much further.

Their political demands included not only the
recovery of Roman Imperial North Africa and the re-
conquest of the Alpine Trentino, Venezia Giulia,
Trieste, Fiume and Dalmatia, but included Italian
claims on Malta, Corsica, Savoy, Nice and the Swiss
33

TWO STREAMS AMD A BRIDGE

Ticino. The inspiration of the Nationalist movement
was militant patriotism with sabre-rattling vengeance.
The party however had not sufficient strength to
make any serious cleavage of current in the general
maelstrom of pre-war politics but its influence lived
to permeate Fascist policy.

A significant movement identified with Nationalist
activities was the creation of the Dante Alighieri
Society. Re-invoking Dante as the apostle of Italian
patriotism, this society harnessed the cultural tradi-
tions of the Italian race to the nulijtant and expansion-
ist aims of the Nationalist Party. Its chief end was to
preserve, by institutions and propaganda, the currency
of the Italian language in the Trentino, Istria and
Dalmatia, where Italians were minority groups imder
Austrian rule. This society now operates as a Fascist
institution, raising Dantesque protests when the Yugo-
slavs twist the Dalmatian tail of the Venetian lion. It
gives cry to Malta.

Between the right of Nationalism and the left of
Socialism there glittered a strange connecting link.
This link was not a party. It was a personality —
Gabriele d’Annunzio. Now with one and now with
the other, the poet gave exhilarating words and
thoughts to each in turn, lending a certain magic surge
of daring ideas and aspirations to the followers of
the two political extremes. The Liberal-Democratic
parties of the Centre were left in the void beneath the
arch of his politico-poetical flights. Fluttering on the
same weird parabola were the Futurists, who mixed up
art, literature and politics in one extravagant gesture
against the established bourgeoise order.

lit was from the parties, people and programmes de-
scribed in this chapter that Fascism was evolved* The
° 33

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

question of intervention, the struggles of the Great
War, the disillusionments of the Peace and the
post-war upheaval all in succession augmented and
finally united, as we shall see, their flow of ideasj

CHAPTER V

FATEFUL TREATY OF LONDON

World War Begins. Berlin's Blunder. Italy ignored when Austria
invades Serbia. Declares Neutrality. Compensation Claims. Vienna's
Refusal. The Entente's bid. Secret Treaty of London. Its Terms.
Master-key to Fascist Foreign Policy. Italy breaks with the Central
Powers.

T he sequence of events leading to Italy’s interven-
tion in the Great War on the side of the Allies and
not on the side of the Central Powers (despite the
Triple Alliance bond) has twofold importance in any
study of the Fascist movement. . In the first place it
allows uSj as already hinted, to see how the prospect
of the war brought into acute prominence the two
streams of Nationalism and Socialism, and laid the
foxmdation of their unity in Fascism under Mussolini.
In the second place it presents for the contemplation
of the student a series of diplomatic acts and agree-
ments destined to have strong reactions on Italy’s
post-war poHcy both before and after the advent of
Mussolini to power — ^reactions which have still a
dominating influence on foreign affairs.

The alliance of Italy to Germany and Austria has
been described in Chapter III. together with the inci-
dents which weakened the Italo-Austrian link. When
Austria-Hungary sent its ultimatum to Serbia after the
assassination of the Archdxike Francis Ferdinand at
Serajevo in June 1914 and moved in arms against
Belgrade, neither the Austro-Hungarian nor German
Governments consulted or advised their ally Italy

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

concerning these movements. In this, the Central
Powers violated the First Article of the Triple Alliance
Treaty which pledged the signatory Powers to an ex-
change of ideas “ on all political and economic ques-
tions which might arise between or among them and
any other nations.”

The only reasonable explanation of this apparent
blunder of Berlin-Vienna diplomacy (apart from a
short-sighted disregard, it would seem, of Italy as a
trusted and fighting force) lay in the knowledge that
any disturbance of the Balkan status quo would be
diametrically at variance with Italian foreign policy.
Italy’s interests were therefore coolly ignored before
the major importance of what was the fixst step in the
Germanic Mittel-Europa drive to connect Germany
with the trade outlets of Mesopotamia and the East,

Austria on the other hand, by being an aggressor
in this opening move against Serbia, saved Italy (also
according to the treaty conditions) any obligation of
joining up with the Austrian troops in their initial act
of aggression. But there was another Article in the
Triple Alliance Treaty which provided for just such
a contingency as the action of Austria had created.
This was the famous Article VII.

According to this Article the signatory Powers
pledged themselves to prevent all territorial changes
which might be disadvantageous to one or other of
them, and to this end they engaged to exchange all
information calculated to enlighten each other of their
own intentions and those of other Powers. But if the
maintenance of the territorial status quo in the Balkans,
the Ottoman coasts, the Adriatic and Aegean islands
became impossible and a temporary or permanent
occupation were made by Austria-Hungary or Italy,

FATEFUL TREATY OF LONDON

such occupation, it was stipulated, could only take
place after previous agreement between the two
Powers — an agreement which had to be based on the
principle of compensation for all territorial advantages
that either of them might gain.

It can be seen therefore that the conditions imder
which Austria invaded Serbia in 1914 not only auto-
matically left Italy neutral but entitled her to com-
pensation.

On August I Germany declared war on France.
On August 4 Britain declared war on Germany. On
August 2 Italy informed Austria-Hungary that in the
terms of the Triple Alliance Treaty a casus foederis had
not arisen and that accordingly Italy proclaimed
neutrality — a declaration which gave the Entente im-
mediate control of the Mediterranean and enabled
France to utilise elsewhere the troops assembled on her
Eastern frontier.

Italy’s neutrality however did not mean that she
had broken away from the Triple Alliance ; negotia-
tions were at once opened with Vienna for the settle-
ment of the compensation claim under Article VIL of
the Treaty — the price of her neutrality.

The negotiations continued until April 8, 1915,
when Italy postulated her demands. These included
the re-establishment of the Alpine frontier fixed by
Napoleon in 1811 — a frontier which passes roughly
east and west at a point between Bolzano and Merano ;
the cession of Venezia Giulia with a frontier line ending
before the inclusion of Trieste ; the city of Trieste to
be a free city ; the cession of certain Dalmatian coast
islands ; recognition of Italian sovereignty at Vallona
in Albania ; abandonment of Austro-Hungarian in-
terests in Albania ; an amnesty for all political and

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

military prisoners ; payment by Italy to Austria-
Hungary of 200,000,000 gold Italian lire as com-
pensation for fiscal loss ; and as a sine qua non, the
immediate completion of all the above conditions.

Austria-Hungary on April i6, 1915, refused aU these
conditions, and offered as her limit the. cession of a
section of the Southern Tyrol from shghtly north of
Trent, conditional recognition of Italian rights in the
Dodecanese islands, submission of the compensation
figure to the Hague Tribunal, all to be post-war
arrangements,

Italy was then faced with a choice of three decisions,
all equally grave for her peace and future. She had
either to knuckle down to Austria-Hungary’s com-
paratively meagre offer and forego her traditional
national aspirations ; or not to accept and yet remain
neutral — an easy prey for a probably vindictive Ger-
mano-Austrian Empire in the event of a Central
Powers* victory ; or join the Entente Allies for a bid
by force of arms.

The Entente was only too eager to have Italy join
them in the encirclement of Germany and to that end
Italy was offered the realisation of all her aspirations,
and more. Italy chose that solution. Based on a
Memorandum signed by Britain, France, Russia and
Italy, a secret treaty — the 1915 Treaty of London —
was concluded.

lit may perhaps be thought — what have all these
pre-war Government negotiations and this Treaty of
London got to do with the history of Fascism ? The
answer is this. The progress of the negotiations with
Austria-Hungary roused Italian public feelings to a
pitch which imposed nationeil sentiment on Parliament
and created a new condition of mind which was to

FATEFUL TREATY OF LOLfDON

have renewed expression seven years later on the
Fascist march on Rome — a state of mind fomented, as
we shall see later, by the very elements which were
summed up in Mussolini’s first speech as a Deputy in
1921 and which in 1922 were crystallized in the first
Fascist Government. As soon as MussoUni assumed
power as Prime Minister and Foreign Minister he
made the Treaty of London the touchstone of Italy’s
relations with France.» And to this day it remains the
touchstone. It is one of the master-keys to a study of
contemporary Fascist foreign policy. The Treaty of
London is therefore so very relevant to the history and
understanding of Fascism that I make no apology for
citing here at some length its salient points — and for
inviting the reader’s particular attention thereto.

In return for Italy “ undertaking to conduct the
war with all means at her disposal ” as an ally of
France, Great Britain and Russia, these three Powers
engaged that “ by the future treaty of peace ” Italy
would receive a northern frontier at its “ natural and
geographical ” limits at the Brenner ; the county of
Gorizia and Gradisca on the north-east ; the city of
Trieste and its surroundings ; the Istrian peninsula
and islands ; the Province of Dalmatia from Lissarika
to Gape Planka with aU shoreward valleys and practi-
cally all the islands fronting that stretch of coast ; full
ownership of Vallona in Albania with sufficient terri-
tory for military protection ; the right to conduct the
foreign affairs of Albania ; confirmed possession of the
Dodecanese ; recognition “ as an axiom ” of the fact
that Italy is interested in maintaining the political
balance of power in the Mediterranean ; the right to
occupy AdaJia in Asiatic Turkey ; recognition of all
Italy’s claims to all those rights and prerogatives in

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

Libya, North Africa, hitherto reserved to the Sultan
of Turkey by the Treaty of Lausanne ; recognition in
principle of the right of demanding for herself certain
compensations in the form of an extension of her
African possessions in Eritrea, Somaliland, Libya and
the colonial districts bordering on French and British
colonies in the event of an extension of French and
British colonial possessions in Africa “ at the expense
of Germany ” ; facilitation by Britain of an immediate
favourable loan of not less than ^^50, 000,000.

The same Treaty also stipulated that the Adriatic
coast from the gulf of Volosca down to the northern
frontier of Dalmatia ; the whole coast of Croatia and
the port of Fiume and adjacent islands ; the whole
coast from Cape Planka to the river Driu, with ports
and islands, would be reserved for inclusion “ in the
territory of Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro.” A
section of the coast was also “ neutralised.”

The above binding Memorandum was signed by all
the four Powers concerned on April 26, 1915. Forti-
fied with this secret treaty — ^like an invisible cloak of
mail — Italy got busy. On May 3, 1915, she intimated
to Austria-Hungary her rejection of their April 16
offer ; pronounced that it was obviously useless to
continue with the violated Triple Alliance Treaty ;
annulled it accordingly and proclaimed her complete
liberty of action from then onwards.

On May 23, 1915, on the side of the Allies Italy de-
clared war on Austria-Hungary. On August 21,1915,
she declared war on Turkey, and in less than two
months later against Bulgaria. It was not until
August 28, 1916, that Italy declared war against
Germany.

(In connection with this chapter see maps 2 and 3.)
40

CHAPTER VI

ITALY JOINS THE ALLIES

Nationalist Propaganda. Mussolini and fVar. Intervention Demands.
Mussolini Expelled from Socialist Party. The “ Popolo dTtalia.” The
Fight against Neutrality. Corradini and Corridoni, D'Annunzio’s
Magical Oratory. Italy Declares War.

W HEN the Great War ultimatums were flashing
across Europe and the nations were mobilising
for the terrible conflict, the Italian Nationalists
wanted their country to go to war at once. It would
appear that it was the psychological effects of war that
they sought rather than the pursuit of any particular
foreign policy. The Nationalist party first wanted
the Government to fight against the Allies. Then they
swung round very quickly and became openly in
favour of casting aside the Triple Alliance ties and
declaring war on Austria. Anything, in short, but
neutrality. The great influence of Giolitti however
was brought to bear on the Centre parties who were
in office, and the whole weight of his support and
all his activities were in favour of neutrality. But in
face of the colossal foreign affairs crisis which was
shaking Europe to its foundations Giolitti still revealed
his Chamber mentality, not reckoning the rising tide
of national feeling. After the Government, sensing
the country’s mood, had broken with Austria and
made a pact with the Entente as above described,
Giolitti was accused of plotting for the fall of the
Cabinet (Salandra was Premier) in order to facilitate

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

the acceptance of desperate offers from Berlin as the
price of neutrality.

The revelation of his declaration that Italy could
obtain “ a good deal ” from Austria without fighting
led to the complete collapse of his veiled dictatorship.
He abandoned Rome, the most reviled man in Italy —
for the moment.

It was the Nationalist Party which had aroused this
storm of public opinion : but it was a Nationalist
Party accompanied by strange allies — the ultra-
Socialists of Mussolini. After a first short phase of
neutrality — before the immensity of the impending
world conflagration could be visualised and before its
reactions on world Socialism could be computed —
Mussolini realised that Italy must fight or be swamped.
In war he also saw the creation of a state of things
which, he thought, would make realisable the great
social insurrection which had failed him in the Red
days earlier in 1914. “ Today is the war,” he cried,
“ tomorrow the revolution.”

The emergence of Italy from a war which would
blast society to its roots would mark the moment
for a proletarian revolution for the reorganisation of
the State. With such arguments Mussolini in his
Socialist writings called the Socialists to arms — “Today
history is made in the trenches, tomorrow we will
make it in the streets.” Behind this was sheer
patriotism — a patriotism revealed in such phrases as
“ The question ought to be looked at, remembering
to be a Socialist, but also, and above all, remembering
to be an Italian.” Other similar indications from
Mussolini in the Avanti are : “ If war is revolutionary,
every good revolutionist ought to take part ” j and
“ Are Nationalism and Glass two opposite conceits ?

ITALY JOINS THE ALLIES

Let us rather see if it isn’t possible to find a basis of
conciliation' in the Nation, which is an historic reality,
and Glass, which is a living reality.” The expression
of these and similar arguments led to his dismissal as
Editor of the Avanti, but at once, on November 15,
1914, he founded the Popolo Italia for the dissemina-
tion of his propaganda.

His aim now became to effect that conciliation of
Nation and Class, and to reach it through a Republican
revolution after the war had rescued the Italian
minorities under Austrian rule and had welded Italian
unity in the crucible of war. The idea of any con-
cihation of the classes on no matter how revolutionary
a basis, together with the idea of intervention in the
war, was anathema to the Socialists, and so on Novem-
ber 24, 1914, MussoHni was expelled from the Socialist
Party.

The motion of expulsion reads : “ This assembly,
in face of the manifest violation of Party discipline
committed by Benito Mussolini with the publication
of the Popolo d’ Italia and with his writings in opposition
to the deliberations of the Party, maintains any dis-
cussion superfluous, orders his expulsion forthwith,
and warns his followers. Long live Socialism ! Down
with the War 1 ”

In next day’s Popolo d’ltalia Mussolini wrote these
prophetic words : “I will have my revenge later on.
Those people who expelled me have me in their blood
and love me. They have demolished me because they
have not understood me. They will yet say to me :

‘ You were a pioneer and a precursor ! ’ That will be
by revenge ; but it will also be my justice.”

Within ten days there had been founded the “ Fascio
of Revolutionary Action ” for the pushing of interven-
es

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

tion. Its immediate objective was to carry its banner
to the parties of the Left — to the Republicans, Social-
ists, Anarchists and Syndicalists, By January 25
there were 50 Fasci (group centres) with a total mem-
bership of 5000. By February there were 105 Fasci
with 9000 members, and the movement had become
known as “ Fascista”

From Austria a piteous cry was raised by the Italian
minorities, pressed into service in armies hostile to
Italy. “ Sixty years of waiting and of martyrdom
under Austria has been enough,” wrote the irredentist
leader Cesare Battisti, “ Our cry is a cry of despair.”
Mussolini who, it will be remembered, had worked and
laboured with Battisti, heard that cry — and irreden-
tism became the leading passion of the Fascio of Revol-
utionary Action, just as it was the leading passion of
the Nationalists.

The fortunes of these two extreme parties of Left and
Right were linked in irredentism as a cause for war.
The orators of both parties began to find themselves
on the same platforms, in the same piazzas ; and ac-
cordingly there was noticeable a growing humanitar-
ianism in the arguments of the Nationalists, and a
growing nationalism in the outlook of the Fascio
revolutionaries. There was no pact whatsoever be-
tween them, but nevertheless each was strongly in-
fluenced and tempered by the other. Their campaign
made rapid progress.

As well as the shouting vanguard which wanted to
rush headlong to war as the saviours of the Italian
minorities, the main body of the Italian populace
moved with gathering momentum in favour of inter-
vention. The Neutralists under Giolitti tried to stop
this movement by bringing into play all the many
44

ITALY JOINS THE ALLIES

manoeuvres of which they were capable — arrests —
that of Mussolini among them — sequestrations, corri-
dor bargains and the creation of Cabinet crises. But
in this case they found that they were dealing with the
Itahan people not as a ballot box but as a nation.

The Centre parties in the industrial north had long
hesitated in favour of neutrality, because they saw that
hostilities against Austria must eventually mean hos-
tilities against Germany — a nation with whom their
business interests were very deeply involved. Austria
and the Austrians were hated, but not so Germany and
Germans. Germany was disliked by the more analy-
tical among Italian thinkers in a vague way, for it was
felt that German business influence was becoming an
incubus. Germans as individuals on the other hand
were admired and Uked. It nevertheless became
patent that, with continued neutrality, a day of reck-
oning would come for Italy. Men of the Centre, like
Professor Salvemini, vigorously pointed' out these
home-truths, with such expressions as “ Don’t let us
deceive ourselves. If this war ends with the downfall
of the Entente Powers, the neutral States no less than
the conquered will fall under the yoke of the victors.
The Austro-Germanic bloe, after its victory, will have
no need to assault Italy in order to enforce servitude.
It wiU be enough for them to command — and we
to obey.”

On the same argument Mussolini wrote in the
Popolo d’ltalia : “ If neutrality continues, Italy to-
morrow will be a nation abject and accursed : a
nation condemned without autonomy and without
future. The barrel-organ man, the boarding-house
keeper and the shoeblack will continue to represent
Italy in the world ; and the world of the living will

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

once more give us a little compassion and much dis-
dain ; we will be a country conquered without fight-
ing for ourselves, dead before born.”

Just as the revolutionary interventionists thus began
to encompass the outlook of the Centre, so did the
Centre begin to encompass the outlook of the National-
ists and revolutionary irredentists. “ I have never
been an irredentist,” wrote Professor Salvemini in
War and Neutrality, “ but we must repair the error of
1866 and complete the work of unification and of
national consolidation — and the time is now or never.
We do not wish the present European crisis to close
without the annexation of the Trentino and Venezia
Giulia to Italy.” These quotations are a few out of
hundreds that could be made to reveal the awakening
of militant national consciousness — a consciousness
which swept parliamentarianism of the old school to
one side and paved the way for the acceptance of the
Fascist idea.

Prominent among the figures specially emblematic
of this new spirit of patriotic loyalty were two men
of very different schools — ^Enrico Corradini, founder
of the Nationalist Party, and Filippo Corridoni, Syndi-
calist agitator. The quahty common to them both was
an unbounded love of Italy and the Italian people,
together with a burning faith in the restoration of their
cormtry’s greatness. The intervention campaign
brought the full and passionate dedication of their
talents to the one cause. Both were forerunners of
Fascism and as such are highly honoured in the Val-
halla of the party. Corridoni died in the trenches,
Corradini lived to see the post-war birth of Fascism
and was largely responsible for the official fusion of the
Nationalist and Fascist parties in 1923. The spirit of

ITALY JOINS THE ALLIES

these two men, it might be said, entered into Mussolini
and there had their final and their full expression. He
made their vision live.

Into this ferment of thought stepped the poet
D’Annunzio. In May 1915 he arrived in Rome. His
oratory roused the people to ecstatic heights. Demon-
strations in favour of going to war swept the country,
and Prime Minister Salandra’s war ultimatum to
Vienna in the same month had the spiritual bulk of
Italy behind it, — but it left the Giolittian neutralists
and the orthodox Socialists fuU liberty to embarrass
the course of Italian arms and to hinder victory. In
the name of the principles of Liberal government a
defeatist minority was left free to exercise its man-
oeuvres and pursue its propaganda in the Chamber,
in the country and even in the trenches.

THE ROOTS

IN THE CRUCIBLE OF WAR

(1915-1918)

“ To die is not enough.”

D’AnnutKio.

CHAPTER VII
THE TWO ENEMIES

Foes at the Front and Foes in the Chamber. Untiring Defeatist Propa-
ganda. First Effects of Russian Revolution. The Turin Tumults.
Effect of Common Sacrifices at the Front. Country before Party.

D uring the Great War Italy had two sets of enemies
to fight ; those who faced them in the trenches
at the front and those who tried, in and out of Parlia-
ment, to make Italy’s intervention in the war in-
effective.

The defeat of Giolitti’s neutralist endeavours was to
prove a factor of extreme importance for the future of
Italy, not because he was defeated but because he had
used the Chamber and his command of the party
system as his weapons — ^and it was popular feeling
which overthrew his campaign. It was a moment in
which Itahans realised that Parliament did not, and
did not want to, represent them. In face of the
tremendous issues of neutrality or war Giolitti’s parlia-
mentary machine had broken down : popular will, in
its real democratic sense, prevailed.

As soon as Italy entered into the war, GioUtti re-
tired to his country place in Piedmont as if his coun-
try’s great decision had been a petty personal quarrel
with himself. Deprived of their real head and master,
the elements of the Centre and Left parties broke up —
many of them renouncing their Giolittian ways and
joining the growing parliamentary majority under the
premiership of the National-Liberal Salandxa. Never-

5 ^

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

theless, the other elements of the old parties continued
in the Chamber to baulk the Government’s war policy
and measures — behaviour which surely amounted to
betrayal of the soldiers bearing the actual tribulations
of conflict.

While the Centre bloc weakened with Giolitti’s ab-
sence, the orthodox Socialist Party grew stronger and
more bold. Apart from such drastic and dramatic
assertions of his constitutionalism as the shooting down
of strikers at Cerignola, Candela, Gastelluzzo and else-
where, Giolitti had minimised Socialist opposition by
a discreet distribution of measures in their favour. His
removal caused a more solid re-affirmation of SociaHst
principles inside and out of Parliament.

Another factor which favoured the initial growth of
defeatist propaganda was the absence of its hardiest
opponents — the Nationalist leaders, the Mussolini
revolutionaries, and the tens of thousands of young
volunteers who had answered the cry of mihtant
patriotism. All these ardent interventionists were at
the front, practising what they had preached. And
so, in a sense, the Socialists and the pro-Germans had
things their own way for the development of an insi-
dious propaganda against prevailing general feeling.

It must be noted that pro-Germanism in Italy did
not, and for good reason, have the same stigma
attached to the term as in Britain. As I have already
shown, Italy’s grievance against Germany was subtle
and indirect. It had nothing in it to inflame the
popular mind. There were many interests which had
benefited from German co-operation. This condition
of mind was taken full advantage of by the Socialists
and other defeatists on the parliamentary and con-
stituency fronts.

THE TWO ENEMIES

Many Socialists however — ^without identifying them-
selves with the Mussolini group — chose for war when
once the die had been cast, and distinguished them-
selves as patriots in giving support to the Cabinet or
on the field. In fact it was a Socialist deputy,
Bissolati, who consolidated the interventionists in the
Chamber ; but thirty-six deputies of the official
Socialist Party sat in the Chamber in organised hos-
tility to their country’s endeavour. Backing them
were the great organs of the Giolitti press, such as the
Stampa of Turin and the Tribuna of Rome. In Italy
there was therefore lacking that single-purpose action
which Britain had at once secured by the establish-
ment of a Coalition Government.

A partial break-through on the Trendno front
caused a Cabinet crisis, which was resolved by nomin-
ating the seventy-eight-year-old deputy, BoseUi, as
successor to Salandra. He represented no party and
so he was considered just the kind of man wanted to
rule a Cabinet representative of all parties. Although
a negative solution, it meant the creation of what
amounted to a national Cabinet. It was this
Cabinet which eased Allied doubts by declaring war
on Germany.

The greatest trials on the “ home front ” were how-
ever yet to come. After a second severe winter in the
Alpine trenches, the disaster of Gaporetto gave new
heart to the defeatists. The effects of the Russian
Revolution began to be felt. Russian-Socialist mani-
festoes calling on the Italian troops to lay down their
arms were showered from Austrian aeroplanes over
the war areas, and the Socialists openly redoubled
their anti-war campaign. The shock of Caporetto,
however, had a lively effect on the people. The

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

danger wakened a national feeling which was ex-
pressed in united action. A new line of defence was
established on the Piave, a new coramander-in-
chief, General Diaz, took charge of the Armies, the
fighting forces were reorganised.

Nevertheless the opponents of the war never ceased
their attacks. From the Socialist benches there rose
the continuous chant, “ Not another vdnter of war.”
In co-operation with the Russian Socialists an exten-
sive anti-war programme was carried out all over the
country. The people were told that they were being
fooled. Agitation in some centres broke out into
tumults. Anti-war rioters in Turin induced the
workers in the ammunition factories to come out on
strike, and the electric current for the leading -engin-
eering shops was cut off. On August 24 troops inter-
vened and the attempts to sabotage Italy’s war effort
were stemmed. Efforts were made to set up Soldiers’
and Workers’ Councils.

Another thing which did little to help matters was
the deliberate misinterpretation of the spirit of the
appeal for peace launched by Pope Benedict XV,
Taken up by the Clerical Press and misused by all
the political elements hostile to Italy’s participation
in the war, the Pope’s appeal was twisted into a
defeatist influence. The Austrian planes, which had
been dropping down bombs and Sociahst leaflets,
changed the latter for copies of the Pope’s peace
appeal, while however still continuing with the bombs.

To fortifiy the Government, leaders of all the parties
were convened. Giolitti returned from his retirement
and gave his help, if not his goodwfll, to the work of
winning the war. A new Cabinet was formed under
the Democratic-Liberal Orlando. The newspapers

THE TWO ENEMIES

dubbed this the “ Fascio Ministry”; but of course
the term was used in its limited sense of a Ministry
bound together, and had nothing to do with the so far
unborn Fascist idea or Party.

The Italian people withstood all the political on-
slaughts of the Socialists, pacifists and enemy agents
who so persistently and unsleepingly attacked the
nation’s moral. By the spring of 1918 the new com-
mander-in-chief had repelled a great Austrian offen-
sive, and in autumn the Italian army began its counter-
offensive which ended in the sweeping victory of
Vittorio Veneto. The Austrian forces were destroyed
or captured, and on November i Italy dictated its
armistice terms.

What I have tried to bring out in this chapter is a
twofold factor : (i) The Italian victory was gained
despite unbroken war-opposition activity which had
sometimes great strength and influence even in the
Chamber ; and (2) it was public feeling which influ-
enced Parliament and not Parliament which influ-
enced public feeling.

This latter point is of considerable importance as in-
dicating the decline of public complacency in political
manipiilation. It marked a starting-point of popular
assertion against the democratic system which had
become debased on account of the reasons traced in
earlier chapters of this book. The national mind was
being, as it were, prepared to appreciate the principles
which later, under great post-war provocations, found
expression in Fascism.

As well as this, however, there were other influences —
great positive influences, which moved the country
during the war towards new ideals which indeed be-
came Blackshirt ideals. These influences were bom,

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

not among the politicians and the parties, but on the
battlefronts. The difficulties of terrain and climate
which the Italian armies overcame demanded an ex-
traordinary degree of personal sacrifice on the part of
the troops. The knowledge of this common sacrifice
acted as a new-found bond among the soldiers drawn
from all parts of the peninsula — ^parts whose interest
had heretofore been considered antagonistic and com-
petitive one to another. «It is not too much to say that
the aspirations of Italian national unity symbolised in
the Risorgimento had their completion in the trenches
against Austria in the Great War. The war proved a
supreme endeavour which demanded, and got, union
among the troops in action. Their tasks and achieve-
ments raised their vision high above Parliament and
Party. They beheld only Italia,

CHAPTER VIII

A GLIMPSE AT THE BATTLEFIELDS

Difficulties of Terrain. Some Battle Figures. Interventionists in
Action. Baitisti Strangled. Corridoni Killed. Marinetti, d’Annunzio,
Mussolini Wounded. Spirit of Fascism.

L et us try to reconstruct in a simple visual way the
strategic handicaps confronted by Italian arms.
The terrain favoured Germany and Austria. The
extensive, low-lying, northern Veneto plain is
bounded on the north, east and west by mountains
and is intersected by three rivers, the Piave, Taglia-
mento and the Isonzo, which flow southward. The
rivers are, very approximately, parallel in their level
courses across the plain. The Trentino wedge of
Alpine moimtains, penetrating south, forms the north-
western wall of this amphitheatre of war. The plain
at its eastern end finishes abruptly against the steep
barrier-face of the Carso plateau. Map Number Two,
inside the covers of this book, while intended to dis-
play the frontier positions, includes the principle place-
names of the war zone.

Austria’s pre-war frontier sliced the eastern sector of
the Veneto plain and on the north and north-west it in-
cluded the southern foothills of the Trentino salient.
In both areas the Austrian line lay well within the
Italian side of the gateway mountain barriers ; but
when war was declared Austria withdrew to heavily
fortified defensive positions on the precipitous face of
the Carso and seized the Trentino passes into Italy.

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

Italy’s 1915-16 actions consisted in carrying by
assault the Carso positions while at the same time
holding in check Austrian advances from the Trentino,
where a break-through would have caught the Italian
armies like nut-crackers.

It is not my intention to do more than recall the
phases of the war on these fronts. “ It is in the
trenches that the roots of Italy’s new-found glory
are to be found ” — I had often heard this phrase
and others similar during the last eleven years of
Fascism and had indeed paid very little attention to
such utterances, thinking them more or less picturesque
propaganda slogans. A visit to the scene of the Itahan
war zones opened my eyes to what the Italian soldiers
had accomplished.

I confess I was amazed when I looked on the bul-
warks of the Carso. These heights are nothing but
broken, jagged rock — like the Krithia gullies of Cape
Helles at Gallipoli, but mountainous, and with a
series of rugged abutments each as large as the
frontage of the Somme. It could be seen how every
hill captured was at once open to flanking fire from
adjacent hills. The Italian concentration positions
on the plain were overlooked like a chessboard. The
Carso IMs range about 800 to 2000 feet in height with
a frontage to the Veneto plain descending in cliffs
and ravines.

These positions were stormed, captured and held
until October 1917, when the Austrian break-through
further north at Gaporetto necessitated a complete
abandonment of the hard-won Carso, and a total
retirement to prevent the isolation of the Carso
armies. With lateral communications and any con-
tact impracticable on account of the topographical

A GlIMPSi: AT THE BATTLEFIELDS

character of the land as above described, and with the
lines of retreat confined to bottle-neck passes which in
turn debouched on to the exposed Veneto plain, there
is no wonder that the retreat took on the characteris-
tics of a rout, because no rearguard action on any
extensive scale was possible until the troops were
clear of the mountains and the naked plain.

The miracle to me is that the forces were so rapidly
rallied and consolidated on a line of defence. Driven
back to the line of the Piave river the Italians con-
solidated there and held it, until in turn, at the final
victory of Vittorio Veneto in October 1918, they
routed the Austrians and regained possession of the
Carso barrier and the plateau beyond it on the road
to Trieste. And, of course, during all these phases
they had to hold back the Austrians from over-
whelming them in the rear through the passes of the
Trentino Alpine salient. Most of the fighting was
above the Alpine snow line.

The principal 1916 Italian drive was through the
town of Gorizia, which lies at the foot of a cup of hills
with Mount San Michele and Mount Sabotino flank-
ing and dominating it. These hills, rising steeply from
sea-level, have been declared “ sacred zones ” by the
Fascist Government. They have been preserved, like
some of the British areas in France and Flanders, so as
to allow visitors and “ war pilgrims ” to study and
re-picture the war.

The formidable Austrian defences high on top of
the cliffs are revealed, Sabotino is hewn into galleries
like Gibraltar, only much deeper. All trench positions
are cut out of the living rock or made of boulders
which stand today as when first blasted. Both
Sabotino and San Michele were taken with the

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

bayonet without preliminary bombardment and under
flanking enemy fire. At the foot of this hill is the war
cemetery of Redipuglia. It includes 30,000 of the
Italian dead of all arms, eighty per cent of them un-
identified, who fell in the initial capture of these hills
and the Carso heights.

Mussolini has ordered that the further 54,000 dead
lying in small isolated graveyards scattered over the
Carso front be gathered into one great monumental
sanctuary also as part of Redipuglia. The remainder
of Italy’s half-million dead is in military cemeteries
back on the Piave unbroken line of resistance and on
the Trentino Alpine front to the north-west.

For the final drive of the war General Diaz, the
commander-in-chief, had 57 divisions (51 Italian,
3 British, 2 French and i Czechoslovak divisions
and I American regiment) totalling 912,000 all
ranks. Opposed to him were 63 Austro-German
divisions totalling 1,070,000 all ranks, of whom

300.000 were taken prisoners at Vittorio Veneto,
in which 58 Austro-German divisions were engaged.
In this final and conclusive action the Italians lost

33.000 men.

In all, Italy mobilised for the war 5,903,000 men.
Of these, in the closing phases of the war, Italy had

1.987.000 officers and men in the front-line Italian
battle zones. In other war areas Italy had 50,000
troops serving with the French armies in France ;

96.000 in Albania and 49,000 in Macedonia. The
Italian dead, through direct war causes, is calculated
at 680,000 ; and the wounded at 1,050,000. -These
arc aU factors very cognate to a study of the Fascist
Revolution. They are figures frequently quoted by
the Fascists in justification of Fascist policy^

A GLIMPSE AT THE BATTLEFIELDS

While Parliament and people were conducting and
suffering the war in face of an unsleeping defeatist
minority, and while the soldiers were experiencing
the bitter conflicts of which I have given a most sum-
mary outline, there was gradually spreading over all
Italy, as already indicated, a sense of unity such as
mere legislation had never accomplished in the fifty
odd years of the Kingdom’s existence. The regions of
Italy became merged in their mingled blood. The
common cause brought north and south into oneness
of effort and sacrifice. The Risorgimento had pieced
Italy together, but these pieces were fused into a whole
in the furnace of war. This new feeling was caught
in its rising tide by the men who had been prominent in
the intervention campaign — and this national surge of
patriotic sentiment they exploited by personal example.

Cesare Battisti, Mussolini’s friend and inspirer of
the irredentist Socialist days at Trento in 1909, left
Austria to fight on the side of Italy. Captured at
Monte Grappa in 1916 he was tried by Austrian court-
martial, convicted of “ desertion ” and strangled at the
stake. Today he is one of the most honoured martyrs
of the Fascist calendar ; one of their most often in-
voked symbols of patriotism.

Marinetti the Futurist, who had been arrested along
with Mussolini for intervention speeches at Milan,
fought as a volunteer, was badly wounded and was
twice decorated for valour. Corridoni, as already
mentioned, was killed in action. The poet d’Anmm-
zio served throughout the war and lost his right eye
during an air flight after bombing Trieste,

Gastellini, one of the Nationalist Party founders, was
killed with Italian volunteer forces in France along
with two of the sons of Garibaldi.

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

Mussolini on the declaration of war left the Popolo
(P Italia to become a private soldier of the 1884 class
in the shock- troop Bersaglieri corps. In his “ letter
of farewell ” to the Popolo d' Italia he wrote : “ When
these words are before the eyes of our readers, I shall
be beyond these wickedly drawn frontier lines which
must be cancelled, because they are a peril and a
shame too long endured. I do not need to tell you
that I am happy. . . . The masses are sound. My
feelings are therefore clear and optimistic. . . . But
we — who are preparing to endure the hardships of
winter in the trenches and are confronting the dangers
of fighting men — do not wish to be stabbed in the
back. Be therefore ever on the watch. We shall
fight. Fight also you.”

The fact that Mussolini served with a Bersagliere
unit during the war had considerable influence years
later when the Fascist March on Rome was being
secretly organised. The history of the Bersagheri regi-
ments is strongly identified with the Risorgimento
struggles. As a corps it is passionately Monarchist.

Mussolini took part in the Carso campaigns until
February 1917, when he was wounded by a bursting
trench-mortar. When picked up, lacerated and inert,
and taken to the field dressing-station, it was found
that there were forty-two fragments of metal embedded
all over his body. After a slow and painful recovery
Mussolini was invalided out of the army in May 1917,
when he returned to the Popolo d’ Italia and the task of
fighting the defeatists on the home fi'ont.

In this chapter I have cited the names of those
interventionists to whom reference has already been
made in earlier chapters. They represent, numeri-
cally, merely a few of the leading figures behind whom
6s>

A GLIMPSE AT THE BATTLEFIELDS

were ever-growing legions of followers. They formed
a group which had great influence in the general
ferment of the nation. The facts of war, even in their
more exhausting and hopeless moments, were knitting
Government and people more and more together ;
but while this was an unconscious movement born of
facing a common great peril, the old interventionist
group strove by word and deed to make the nation
conscious of its coherence. They voiced the country’s
destiny. ‘That is why the same strange mixture of
revolutionaries, poets and nationalists became the ex-
ponents of latter-day Fascism. They were the people
who did not forget*

And in Mussolini’s “ War Diary,” among his simple
record of the pastimes, thoughts and pains of soldiering
in alternate relief zones and fire-steps amid Alpine
winters, I there are the revealing flashes of thought
which show that Fascism has its real roots deep down
in the mud and blood of the trenches*

CHAPTER IX

THE LONDON TREATY QUALIFIED

The igj^ Secret Pact Affected by U.S. Entry in the JVar. The Succession
States'. Greek Mix-up, Mew Russia. Turkish Spoils. Effect on
Fascist Policy,

D uring the progress of the war the 1915 Secret
Pact of London and other inter- Allied pacts of the
kind were adjusted and altered as the unforeseen cir-
cumstances of the conflict veered and changed. The
principal circumstances were (i) the entry of the
United States of America into the world conflict,
(2) the potential formation of succession States out of
the land of the potentially defeated Central Powers,
(3) the ambiguous position of Greece, (4) the collapse
of the Czarist and the rise of revolutionary Russia ;
and (5) the prospective defeat and dismemberment of
the Turkish Empire.

The alterations caused by these factors had consider-
able influence on the diplomatic conditions on which
the Peace Treaty delegates eventually based their
projects during the Paris settlements of 1918-1919.
They also affected the whole atmosphere of the Peace
Conference. These influences were mostly to Italy’s
disadvantage and they must here be taken into ac-
count because it was this change of atmosphere which
caused the first violent reaction of Musso lin i against
the Allies when he created the Fascist movement.

The new things introduced by the five above-
mentioned considerations were, as far as they affected
64

THE LONDON TREATT QJJALIFIED

the course of Italy’s history, briefly, as follows :

(i) The entry of the United States brought into Euro-
pean diplomacy the Wilsonian watchword (or catch-
word if you like) of self-determination. America joined
the war with free hands and under the banner of the
liberation of peoples. Secret treaties were ignored.

(2) Serbia, as of the Allies and as a potential
succession state, getting an inkling of what was to
befall in the Adriatic under the secret 1915 arrange-
ment, saw to it as early as 1917 that a way was opened
to soften down the Treaty of London terms. The
Pact of Corfu, signed in July 1917 between the
Serbian Government and the “ Yugoslav Committee,”
paved the way for the eventual formation of the King-
dom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, otherwise Yugo-
slavia — ^which was to be Italy’s new Adriatic neighbour
in the place of Habsburg Austria. An Italo-Yugoslav
agreement was thereafter worked out and signed in
Rome, by which the Italian and Yugoslav delegates
pledged themselves to settle all particular territorial
controversies on the basis of the principles of nation-
ality and the rights of the people to decide their own
fate, in such manner as not to injure the vital interests
of the two friendly nations — ^interests which were to
be defined at the moment of peace.

(3) The ambiguous position of Greece, jockeying
about as half- foe and half-ally, and further jockeyed
about in Lloyd Georgian diplomatic tangles in the
Near East, eventually led to confusion between prom-
ises made to Italy and also made to Greece.

(4) The collapse of Czarist Russia and the rise of
revolutionary Russia meant the replacement of the
Imperial Benckendorflf who had signed the 1915
Treaty of London by a Kerensky who repudiated die

B 65

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

secret diplomacy of the Czars : and Kerensky found
the Allies tentatively anxious to bolster up his Men-
chevist Russia against the growing Bolshevist storm-
clouds.

(5) The prospective dismemberment of the Turkish
Empire was not envisaged in the 1915 Pact of London.
It referred, it will be remembered, to the acquisition of
territory “ at the expense of Germany.” France and
Britain in 1916 adjusted this little matter between
them, so that a partition of Turkish possessions was also
understood. Italy intervened for her share in the
spoil and in April 1917, as a derivation of the Anglo-
French igrS Agreement, the Treaty of St.-Jean-de-
Maurienne was signed. This treaty reserved the
Smyrna-Adalia zones in Asia Minor to Italy, “ subject
to Russia being allowed to express its opinion.”

The five above factors are not — they cannot be —
presented in any strict order of time or effect. They
had repercussions on each other and they each caused
repercussions on the Treaty of London, Italy’s vital
document. Every item of Italian peace and foreign
policy was affected by that in ter- Allied agreement.

THE SAPLING

ONE AGAINST MANY

(1918-1922)

“ There is a continuity of history in
those who fought and conquered in
the trenches and those who made
the March on Rome.”

Mussolini,

CHAPTER X

MUSSOLINI RAISES HIS FLAG

The Rise of Socialism. Cabinet Divisions. Strike Era Begins. Socialist-
Communist Bloc Founded. Mussolini’s first Fascio Founded. Its
Programme. Labour and ex-Servicemen. First Provincial Fasci.
Consistency of First Economic and Foreign Policy with Policy To-day.
The Fascist Objectives.

I N the preceding chapter I have more than once
written of the “ unity ” which Italy found in a
hard-won victory, but that sense of unity had to suffer
many blows in the aftermath of war before it became
a dynamic post-war assertion.

As soon as the Armistice lessened the national ten-
sion, the Socialists, exalted by the clamorous tri-
umphs of the Extreme Left in Russia, Germany, Htm-
gary and Austria, redoubled their efforts to add Italy
to the growing number of nations in Europe which
were apparently rallying to the red flag of Internation-
alism. The Italian Government — with its stability
weakened by principles which allowed these subversive
notions to take root and flourish, and with its authority
compromised by the ties and obligations of party blocs
— had neither the strength nor the necessary will to
check this rising tide.

Sergeant Mussolini, however, in his “War Diary”
had noted in October 1915, “ Here at the front no one
says, ‘ I am going back to my village ’ ; but instead,
‘ I am going back to Italy.’ Italy thus appears, per-
haps for the first time, in the conscience of so many of
its sons as a single and living reality ; in short, as a

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

Fatherland.” But the feelings created during the
months following November 1918, by demobilisation
delays, by wildfire Socialist propaganda, and by
Governmental indifference caused the liberated
soldiers to return to their Italy — but to the slogan
of “ the factories to the workmen and the land to
the peasants.”

The discussions prior to the departure of the Italian
delegates to the Paris Peace Conference led to divisions
of opinion in the Cabinet and in the Chamber — divi-
sions which were seized on and exaggerated by the
Socialists with disturbing effect on the already shaken
public mind. A sense of disillusionment spread with
almost panic rapidity. From propaganda the Social-
ists, fortified with support from Moscow, passed to
action, and ex-soldiers found themselves being mobbed,
and the era of strikes began. Against this rising and
unchecked tide there were ranged only a few helpless
people in the Government, some disorientated groups
of ex-servicemen and the vigorous leading articles of
the Popolo d’ltalia. Roimd this paper there rallied
many of the same Futurist, Nationalist and d’Annun-
zian elements which had united for the intervention
campaign three years before.

In February 1919 the Italian Unitarian Socialist
Party concluded an alliance with a Red revolution
bloc of the Left and the Russian Bolshevists. As a
result the dominating Italian Communist Party was
shortly afterwards founded. This event was cele-
brated with a “ Red Day ” manifestation in Milan,
when the Italian national tricolour flag was publicly
tom down and insulted, the ex-servicemen execrated,
evacuation of the redeemed frontier areas demanded,
a proletarian mobilisation advocated and the imme-
70

MUSSOLINI RAISES HIS FLAG

diate unconditional release of imprisoned deserters
insisted upon. This demonstration, marked with
tumult, was repeated in the other provincial capitals.

On March 20, 1919, the Socialists ofl&cially pro-
claimed that their programme was to lead the prole-
tariat for the overthrow of capitalism and the estab-
lishment of a Red regime. Four hundred thousand
Reds thus revealed that they intended to assert their
destructive will on the forty million people of Italy ;
and Parliament revealed that it was, as a whole, un-
able, and, in part, unwilling to prevent this imposi-
tion.

Mussolini’s answer was to augment the written
word by direct action. In a small hall beneath his
lodgings in Piazza San Sepolcro, Milan, he convened
a body of less than two hundred followers, an (3 on
March 23, 1919, the first Fascio di Combattimento came
into being. In name and idea it was a reinvocation
of the interventionist Fascio whose work we have
already described : but where it had been a combative
unit for the furtherance of the continuity — albeit re-
volutionary — of Italy’s Risorgimento war of national
redemption from the foreigner, this time it was a
fighting unit for the salvation of Italy from Italy itself.

The party emblem depicted on the title-page of the
first number of II Fascio, the original weekly organ of
Mussolini’s Fascio di Combattimento, shows that the orig-
inal /ojcio was not that of the Roman lictor’s rods, but
the union-in-sLrength bundle of sticks immortalised
by Aesop. The engraving on U Fascio is a hand grasp-
ing a bunch of saplings. The immediate aim of
these first Fascists is clearly stated in the programme
drawn up at that historical meeting in the Piazza
San Sepolcro. This programme — / Postulati dei

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

Fasci per la Costituenie — ^includes the following main
points :

We wish : (the document runs)

1. To rally all those who moved for intervention in the
war and who, now that the war has been triumphantly won,
feel called upon to prevent the sabotage of peace.

2. To create Fascist centres which will send delegates to
a great meeting of Italian interventionism.

3. That that meeting be consecrated to the solution of the
fundamental problems of our nation.

4. Thatfrom that meeting there arise an anti-party, namely
a Fascist organisation which will have nothing in common
with the “credos” and “dogmas” or “mentality” or,
above all, with the “ prejudices ” of the other parties.

5. That this Constituent of Fascists be the prelude to a
Constituent of the Italian People. The Fasci ought to be
the framework enclosing the energies of the ex-servicemen.
The old parties arc cadaverous relics and it should not be
difficult to bury them entirely.

To sum up :

We do not present problems : we present solutions.

We constitute the organ of agitation for the handling of
these problems.

We, if it be necessary, will convert the organ of agitation
into an organ of action for the solution of given problems
in a manner and in a style dictated by our wiU and by events.

Long live the Fasci per la Costituente — and now to work
without delay.

2^rd November, igiQ. MUSSOLINI.

Mussolini’s initial movement was among the work-
ing-men of Italy. The demobilisation had poured
tens of thousands of ex-servicemen on to the unpre-
pared labour market. The labour organisations,
while handicapping the employment of these men by
72

MUSSOLINI RAISES HIS FLAG

the rigid application of trade-union rules, welcomed
them to swell the numbers of organised revolt. In
November 1918 Italian workmen were divided among
three organisations : the Confederation of Work, the
Italian Syndical Union and the Italian Union of Work.
The Union of Work had been interventionist, but that
expression of its pre-war patriotism became swamped
under post-war disillusionment. In the Syndical
Union the epoch of strikes which opened in 1919 be-
came more and more political and less and less econo-
mic. Differences concerning questions of pay and
working-hours sunk to secondary importance as the
Union concentrated its efforts towards inflaming the
masses on purely political and social issues.

Many of the first Constituent Fascists were Syndical-
ists who had broken with their own Union ; but it was
as ex-soldiers that the Fascists sought out their earher
supporters. Nevertheless the presence of this revolu-
tionary Syndicalist element was to prove a most im-
portant factor in the development of the Fascist idea
which now has its fulfilment in the Fascist State. The
records of that first meeting reveal that the principles
of a Corporative State were tentatively discussed and
measures taken for the furtherance of the Syndicalist
ideas of co-operation which now forms the national
productive “ totalitarian ” basis of the established
regime.

While Mussolini was making this effort to gather
the ex-servicemen rovmd his newly erected emblem of
the Fascia of unity, the Socialists, by the formation of
Soldiers’ and Workers’ Councils, were making special
endeavours to disintegrate the consolidarity which
the fraternal spirit of the trenches had created through
suffering and endurance among the troops fi:om ^

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

parts of the peninsula. It was the attack on the vic-
tory and on the men who had achieved that victory
which roused Mussolini as much as the social peril to
which his country was being exposed. His exaspera-
tion was heightened by the conviction that the Govern-
ment and diplomats were preparing, under the excuse
of Wilsonian patronage, to concede away that which
had been so hardly won. His feelings are expressed
in leaders in which, for instance, he writes ; “ We
interventionists who took part in the war cry out —

‘ Stand back you Socialist jackals, it is forbidden to
divide the dead. They are not of Party but of Country
and of Countries. They are humanity.’ We will
defend our dead against all defamation.

” Do not fear, O Glorious Spirits ; we will defend
you even at the cost of digging trenches in the piazzas
and streets of our cities.” Again, “ People who have
fought for four years and have given victory to the
world do not accept patrons and tutors. Let Wilson
speak to America — ^where no one bothers about him
any longer — instead of working off Ihs ignominious
frauds on our blood.” When this was written Mr.
Wilson had been enrolled as an honorary citizen of
Rome.

Other early documents which reveal the first ideas
of the Fascists are to be found in the provincial arch-
ives. They reveal a combination of Socialist and
Nationalist programmes — ^but with a certain spiritual
dedication of all endeavours to the vindication of the
fallen and the co-operation of the classes under safe-
guard. These were the essentially new things in the
embryo movement. A typical example of this is seen
in the manifesto issued in 1919 by the Fascio di Combatti-
mento of Montepulciano in Tuscany. I choose this one
74

MUSSOLINI RAISES HIS FLAG

for quotation because it shows how quickly the
Fascist leaven began to influence semi-rural centres
far removed from the direct personal influence of the
Milan Fascia. The Montepulciano Fascia includes
passages like these ;

“ The Fascist ideal is germinated in the name of the dead
and the wounded. We do not fight against those who work
but against those who in the name of holy ideas sow hatred
among the masses. We struggle against a parasite bour-
geoisie, but we defend a productive bourgeoisie which pro-
vides indispensable elements for the development and pro-
gress of whatsoever regime.

We wish the formation of a national technical council
of work and industry, of transport, health, communications,
etc., elected from the professional elements as a whole or of
the masters, with legislative powers. The question of the
regime is subordinate to the moral and material interests,
present and future, of the nation gathered together in its
reality and in its historical sequence. For this we are with-
out prejudice for or against existing institutions.

We wish a social legislation equipped with the necessities
of those new demands, especially with regard to taking care
of the disabled and old workmen, either agricultural, indus-
trial or clerical ; representation of workers in the functioning
of industry not limited to such things as concern the welfare
of the personnel and the systematization, technical and moral,
of the great public services.

We wish the immediate coordination of aU those associa-
tions of ex-soldiers and of war-wounded towards whom we
and the country owe gratitude in an unmistakable and
tangible form.

We wish a strong taxation on capital of a progressive char-
acter ; the revision of all war munition contracts and the
sequestration of all war profits.

For foreign affairs we demand :

A. The Treaty of Versailles revised and modified in those
parts which are obviously inapplicable, or whose application

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

can be the foundation of formidable hatreds and new
wars.

B. The effective application of the Treaty of London,
the annexation of Fiume to Italy, and the care of Italians
residing in the lands included in the Treaty of London.

C. The gradual untying of Italy from the group of Western
plutocratic nations, through the development of our pro-
ductive international forces.

D. The bringing together of the enemy nations — Austria,
Germany, Bulgaria, Turkey, Hungary — but with an attach-
ment of dignity and always taking into clear account the
supreme necessities of our northern and oriental frontiers.

E. The creation and intensification of friendly relations
with all the peoples of the East, including the Governments
of the Soviet and South-Eastern Europe.

F. Revindication in regard to the colonies and the rights
and necessities of the nation.

These and similar initial indications of policy have
their special interest when compared with the achieve-
ments of today — achievements which are still consis-
tent with such early guiding principles. Indeed the
above quoted six pomts on Foreign Policy in 1919
might have been written in Italy to-day.

But the real work confronted by the San Sepolcro
nucleus concerned action rather than thought, con-
flict rather than contemplation. As already seen,
their lines of attack radiated against several objectives.
They ranged against : (i) the unconstitutional Social-
ists and the Reds, (2) the Constitutional parties whose
ineptitude had made the Red risings possible, (3) all
international elements — ^Bolshevik, Socialist, Masonic
and Clerical — whenever and wherever they impinged
detrimentally on Italian affairs, and (4) the Peace
Treaty delegates and policy, especially on the Fiume
question. By a political anomaly, the Fascists at this
yS

MUSSOLINI RAISES HIS FLAG

phase of their evolution were, in the name of order,
anti-constitutional, republican and revolutionary.

We will now trace, in separate sections, the progress
of these fourfold conflicts from the first San Sepolcro
Fascist days of March 1919 until June 21, 1921, when
Mussolini as a newly elected Deputy carried his war
from the piazzas into the citadel of the Government.

CHAPTER XI

BATTLES WITH THE REDS

Red Terrorism. First Fascist Congress. Plans to Oppose Reds. Fascists
and Anti-Red Groups. Mussolim stands for Parliament. Not Elected.
Arrested Instead. Strike-ridden Italy. Factories Seized. Communists in
Control. Inept Government. Pitched Battles. Giolitti back in Power.
First Fascist Syndicate at Milan. Corporate Idea takes Root. The
Communists and Socialists Split. Government against the Fascists. The
Diana Massacre. Position in Alto Adige. New Elections. Thirty-
three Fascists Returned. Mussolini Deputy.

I F you turn up the principal newspaper files in Italy
(except those of the Popolo d' Italia) for the year 1919
you wiU find very little about Mussolini or Fascism.
Instead you will read an unbroken record of Socialist
violence, strikes, bombings, assaults and triumphant
capturings of factories and municipalities. As a kind
of indeterminate obbligato to the strident news of
Red doings you will find endless parliamentary de-
bates, “ scenes in the Chamber ” and electioneering
manoeuvres. In short you wiU find a state of affairs
which makes it seem miraculous that Fascism could live
at all. But if you carefuUy trace the records you wiU
discover with what extraordinary courage, determina-
ation and sacrifice the Fascists graduaUy began to stay
and then to dominate the sweeping tides. Their ulti-
mate success proves that Mussolini was right in his war-
time recognition that Italy was at last indeed imited ;
but it required his leadership and inspiration to make
people realise it whoUy for Aemselves.

■ffhe rapid growth of his movement in face of the
merciless forces of disintegration seems to justify

BATTLES WITH THE REDS

the claim that he was Italy’s man of destiny whose
highest achievement was the revelation of Italy
to herself. The reconstruction of Italy under his
genius during the last established decade of his regime
was a great work, but no matter how colossal, how
unique in the annals of governmental administration,
his essential contribution to Italy was that vital spark
which he struck among his first followers in 1 9 1 9 . The
tremendous odds could not quench it. In travail it
shone brighter. Its light spread in the fury of the
combat against it. And all because it reflected the
united national conscience which Mussolini had
divined before Italia had really divined it herself,

The Socialists used terrorism as one of their principal
means of persuasion. The spring of 1919 was marked
by a general strike with conflicts and incidents aU over
Italy. This strike was the answer of the Reds to the
Government because the Cabinet had forbidden pub-
lic manifestations in honour of Lenin. During all
summer there were clashes between the Reds and the
police — with the inevitable strikes of protest. Shops
were pillaged in Milan, Turin, Bari, Messina, Genoa,
Pisa, Naples, Verona, Perugia and Florence.

In July 1919 a Socialist Republic was declared in
several centres, notably in the valleys near Bisenzio.
After considerable bloodshed the insurgents were
bought off by an imposed 50 per cent reduction
of food retail prices. The revocation of this im-
economic concession, shortly afterwards, started new
troubles.

In August the Anarchists began to add systematic
bomb-throwing and dynamiting to the general Red
endeavour. Bombs were thrown in theatres. Help-
less theatre audiences were to become a favourite

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

target. In the midst of Red propaganda for an am-
nesty for war deserters, the Italian army was demobil-
ised. In September this amnesty was given and the
released deserters were, on demand, granted practi-
cally all the same rights as the loyal ex-combatants.

Gathering together the tiny Fascist units which had
intimated adherence to the San Sepolcro Constituent,
Mussolini in October 1919 presided over the first
Fascist Congress, when he outlined a plan of action to
purge the country of the Reds, to enforce order
and to justify the ex-soldier, the dead and the victory.
This congress was held in Florence. One hundred and
forty-eight Fasci centres were represented and it
was announced that sixty-eight more Fasci were in
course of being formed. The delegates represented
some 45,000 inscribed members. Every Fascio sent
five delegates. The Reds assailed it and the congress
ended in a revolver fight.

This congress was timed for the beginning of a
general election campaign when Fascism had to put
into practice the resolutions for unity passed by the
delegates. The tendency was to mobilise all the in-
tervention forces of the Left, but the attitude of the
Republicans and Masons made this impossible, as some
also had controlling interests in the interventionist asso-
ciations of the Right. The Mussolini F ascists included
partial expropriation of capital in their programme
— a project aimed at the war profiteers and the great
banks, which were more concerned with speculative
industry than with banking. This part of the Fascist
programme, however, drove a wedge between the inter-
ventionists of Left and Right. The difficulty was the
distinction between interventionists as such and as
members of political groups. There were anti-Com-
80

1 ascists enteiint^ Ftiiaia aft( i its capture fiom the Reds At tht head of
the squadnsti column is Balbo and Grancli

BATTLES WITH THE REDS

munist Socialists who had come over to Fascism but
were nevertheless hostile to the Fiume and Dalmatian
claims inscribed on the Fascist banners.

An attempt was made to form a bloc with a powerful
association known as the Union of the DemobiUsed,
but this fell through. The Fascists stood alone, the
Demobilised putting up their list of parliamentary
candidates under the insignia of a steel helmet — a
forerunner of the Germanic Stahlhelm organisation,
but professedly of the Left.

The Fascist “ list ” consisted of nineteen candidates.
The first name was Benito Mussohni, the second was
the Futurist Marinetti, and it included the name of
the Maistro Toscanini. The other names were those
of men of all previous political colours down to ex-
Anarchists. But as Fascists they had a measure in
common : with one exception they had all been
war volunteers and with two exceptions they had all
been wounded or decorated for valour.

It was on this “ list ” that the Fascists of the Left —
that is, the followers of Mussolini — first made public
use of the fascia of the Roman lictors, emblem not only
of the strength of unity but also a token of discipline
and a symbol of past triumphs. The lictorfascio was
decided upon at a Fascist reunion on October 23, 1919.
The associations of war volunteers and many of the
Arditi shock troops rallied to the Mussolini Fascists.

The non-Mussolini Fascists of the Right acted
under the title of “ the Fasci of Patriotic Assurance ”
and selected the Star of Italy as their emblem. In
November the general elections were held.

Mussolini polled only a few thousand votes and
neither he nor any of his eighteen fellow Fascists on the
“ list ” were elected. The general victors throughout
^ 81

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

the country were the Socialists and the new Popular
Party — of whom more hereafter.

In the Popolo dTtalia Mussolini consoled his followers
for their defeat by asserting that after all their effort
was only “ a limited and circumscribed affirmation.”

On the night following the declaration of the poll
the Socialists spread the news in Milan that the body
of a man identified as that of Mussolini had been found
in the Naviglio canal. A Socialist procession marched
in triumph to siege the headquarters of the Fascists.
During this march a bomb was thrown, wounding a
dozen or so of the demonstrators. For this a general
strike was proclaimed for the morrow, and meanwhile
the police arrested some thirty Fascists and perquisi-
tioned fifteen revolvers and a Verey pistol found in the
safe of the Popolo dTtalia offices. Mussolini was by this
time known to be very much alive and a mandate for
his arrest was issued and executed. He was taken to
police headquarters, questioned for two hours con-
cerning the arms and then put in a cell. As the posses-
sion of the revolvers in a locked place was not a prison-
able offence, the hand of the Socialists through
Premier Nitti was seen in the procedure and there was
considerable local public protest. Mussolini was re-
leased in twenty-four hours.

The scenes in the Chamber after these elections
were marked with anti-monarchist demonstrations,
the Socialists at the opening of Parliament in Decem-
ber leaving the House in a body as the King entered.
The year 1919 ended with strikes all over the country.

Diplomatic differences with Italy’s war-time Allies ;
a coup de force at Fiume ; trouble with the Socialist
Congress of Berne, with the Freemason Congress of
82

BATTLES WITH THE REDS

Paris and with clerical party trade unions (all of which
shall in turn be surveyed) added to the complications
of the situation which confronted the Fascists at the
beginning of 1920 — a situation which piled itself up
in social disaster as the year progressed.

The year broke with a renewed epidemic of strikes.
In January 1920 the railwaymen, postal workers and
employees of all public services joined in a strike
which seriously compromised national economy. The
Carrara quarry workers went on strike. The printers
of Pesaro, the tramwaymen of Verona, the bank em-
ployees of Bologna, iron workers at Milan and Pola
followed suit. At a National Council meeting of the
Italian Socialist Party it was proposed that the Party
be reformed on a Soviet basis.

The railway lines were bombed at Milan, Arezzo
and Ancona. In Cremona the Fascists managed to
break up a Red procession, but in Florence they
suffered in grave tumults with the Anarchists under
Malatesta. Twenty-five were wounded in this side-
show alone. Threatened by reprisals the Nitti Gov-
ernment failed to enforce order.

More Government measures were taken against the
Fascists than against the Reds. Trains operated by
Fascists who were non-union men, and trains carrying
troops or officers were shot at and bombed. Under
Red pressure the Government punished some of the
railwaymen belonging to the Milan section of the
State Railways who were “ culpable of having remained
at their posts during the January strikes,” At Pisa
the Reds took a short cut to the same sort of “ justice ”
by opening revolver fire on such “ culpables.”

By February 1920 the nxunber of Fascists in Milan
alone had increased to 1800.

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

Not counting innumerable and irresponsible more
or less small local strikes all over the country, 200,000
employees of the chemical industries were on strike in
February ; local and State public service employees of
all Italy came out in March, with seizure and occupa-
tion of factories in Piedmont and Naples by the Reds.
The Nitti Government fell and was reconstructed.
After this, deficits in every department of the
State budget were announced in the Chamber ; and
the Socialist mayor of Milan was dismissed because
he had consented to hoist the Italian flag over
the Municipal Buildings. As a further complica-
tion the Fascist and the shock-gangs of the Socialists
on some occasions joined forces in their common
antagonism against Nitti, although no alliance was
tolerated. Ireland during the height of the Sinn Fein-
Black and Tan trouble was a Sunday school treat
compared to the state of affairs in post-war Italy.

In April 1920 there were 70,000 men on strike. The
invasion of factories grew bolder, and to this was
added the invasion of private estates with destruction
of farms, crops and livestock. By this time the nerve
of the victimised public was at breaking point.

In Milan alone that month 350 doctors, 350 mid-
wives and 80 veterinary surgeons were prohibited
from continuing their work of social mercy ; food was
at a premium and the Bologna Chamber of Work
ordered the refusal of bread to all who did not belong
to the Red organisations. There were strikes in 308
Communes. Meanwhile the Fascist numbers were
steadily growing while at the same time their roll of
members was being cut down by casualties in the
fighting and rioting.

BATTLilS WITH THE REDS

The Mussolini Fascists were not the only people
who banded together to confront the rising hordes of
strikers. By this period there had sprung into being
several anti-Red associations whose membership was
also drawn from interventionist sources. There was
the Anti-Bolshevist Popular Union, the Committee of
Civil Organisation, the National League, the Fascia
of Patriotic Assurance. Organisations such as these
aimed at vindicating the war victory, but they were
all of anti-Labour mentality : strike-breakers without
heed to what any particular strike was about. In
March 1919 Mussolini tried to unite these several anti-
Red units. Although they and the Mussolini Fascists
had the same immediate objectives in view as far as
restoring order was concerned, the effort to work
together failed for what may best be described as in-
compatibility of temperament.

At Viareggio in May 1920 a Red insurrection on a
grand scale broke out and army and naval forces were
mobilised to check sabotage. But agrarian violences
spread in the north of Italy and one incident recorded
in the contemporary local Press is the burning alive of
fifty head of cattle and the stampeding and abandon-
ment of 20,000 head.

The Communists by this time had taken control of
the situation which the Socialists had created and the
Liberals tolerated.

In reaction against the forces of disorder the Fascist
numbers by May 1920 had risen to 27,000 with 3700
Avanguardisti. The latter, mostly young men who
had been too young for active service during the Great
War, began as a students’ corps of advanced-guard
Fascists, first organised in March. In May Nitd left
office as Premier and in June his Ministry fell —

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

the national budget then showing a deficit of
14,000,0005000 lire. The Fascists waged war against
Nitti in all Italy. In Rome the armed Party pohce,
the Guardie Regie which Nitti had formed, fired on a
group of unarmed students who were singing the
Risorgimento patriotic song, Mamelfis hymn. Eight
of them were killed and forty- two wounded.

In June 1920 there were 12,000 railwayman on
strike in Southern Italy and in North-East Italy 30,000
peasants began a “ white revolution ” whose aim was
land seizure. They descended on Treviso, where there
was violence and devastation.

During this month the Government decided to
renounce Italy’s position in Albania. The Albanians
rose against the Italians while they were retiring on
Vallona. The Reds seized this opportunity to pour
propaganda among the troops embarking at Ancona
to reinforce their beleaguered comrades. The conse-
quent tumult — half-revolution, half-mutiny — was with
difficulty suppressed.

An international strike was ordered, it is said by the
Amsterdam Internationale, for July 20-21, 1919. It
was to be a 48-hour complete paralysis of Europe
to show consofidarity with Russia. British workmen
as a whole refused to take part in it. France com-
promised with a half-hearted 24-hour cessation of
work. But Italy, the least able to withstand the
results, plunged into it with chaotic inconsequence.
Many of the Italian strikes were thus organised from
abroad to prove “ solidarity.” In this the Italian
workman was often the dupe of foreign interests as
well as the catspaw of foreign Labour.

It was during these events of 1920 that Ramsay
MacDonald as a Socialist leader paid a fraternal visit
86

BATTLES WITH THE REDS

to his Rome comrades. I would venture to believe
from what he then saw of Italian conditions that he
returned to London, at least inwardly, a chastened
man.

In desperation the country cried out for a saviour
and Giolitti answered the call. The leader who had
been hounded out of Rome in 1915 and who had been
execrated during the war was welcomed back to the
capital in July 1920. He at least was a man who
knew how to handle the parties and a ray of hope shot
through the storm-clouds when he came back to his old
familiar ground in the Itzilian Chamber ; but things
had gone too far for mere parliamentarianism to check.
The flush of victory gave hfe and boldness to the forces
of anarchy. These yelling mobs, armed, organised and
determined, constituted the harvest of tares which
Italian misuse of the democratic system had sown.

With a policy successively suave and violent Giolitti
tried to repress the universal turbulence ; but unction
and blows only fed the flames. Then he tried his
master-game of working off one party against another,
and of seeking freak alliances to manoeuvre liis
Government into effective control. In this he invited
the Fascists to join cause with him in fighting the
Socialists — even as a Communist group once asked the
Fascists to join them against Nitti, and as (in later
history) the Mafia of Sicily made overtures of co-opera-
tion. The Fascists in some cases openly assisted the
Government forces in combating subversive strong-
holds but the alhance was refused, just as the Com-
munist and Mafia proposals were rejected.

Mussolini kept a free hand for the “ direct action ”
principles laid down at the original San Sepolcro Con-
stituent Assembly. But to the swelling forces of

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

‘Fascism there was by now added the sympathetic
attachment of all ex-servicemen and the frank support
of the Nationalists, Mussolini’s allies in the interven-
tionist days. The affair of d’Annunzio at Fiume (yet
to be woven into the general picture of this period) had,
thanks to the poet’s knowledge of the value of political
symbohsm, given a great contribution to the idea of
emblems, flags, salutes and insignias which were now
becoming part and parcel of the Fascist movement/

The Communists and Socialists flew the Red flag
but did not wear the Red shirt, for was not the Red
shirt the uniform of Garibaldi ? Those who were
Socialist Republicans wore Red shirts, because had
Garibaldi not been a Republican at heart ? The
Nationalists wore Blue shirts ; and eventually the
Fascists, Black, These were not things of parade but
of identification. It took a bold man to wear them ;
for it was the bomb, the revolver, the rifle, the
bludgeon and the knife that they invited.

'As the Fascists grew stronger, the Socialists grew
more compact and desperate. Fights became char-
acterised with ferociousness. Incidents of personal
heroism and of bestial cruelty, of patriotic self-
abnegation and of bloody revenge, of martyrdom and
murder punctuate the pages of the history of this social
upheaval..

The theories of George Sorel found their organised
expression in the assault squads of the Fascists.

Pitched battles were fought at Ferrara and Bologna
in the summer months, and the Red Guards still terror-
ised all Italy. They controlled the movements of the
bourgeoisie, insulted battle flags which had braved
the victories of the Isonzo and the Trentino. Officers
were man-hunted. Two were killed and eleven
88

BATTLES WITH THE REDS

wounded in one August night in Savona, and in other
reactions five were killed near Siena, seven killed and
ten wounded near Florence, and three killed and
seven wounded near Naples. Incendiarism began ;
and shops, factories, ports and sheds were bombed and
fired. A textile strike ended with 7,000,000 fire
damage to the workmen and 50,000,000 lire loss of
production to the nation.

During September 1920 the Reds captured and
occupied many of the principal factories in Piedmont,
Lombardy, Liguria and Naples. The Red flag was
hoisted on all steel and iron works. Murders and
massacres were recorded as everyday incidents, but
the public, hardened as it had become, was specially
shocked with the acts of Red violence in Turin during
the general occupation of the extensive factories there.
Red tribunals were set up and two Fascists were
arraigned before it and executed “judicially.” The
Government did not intervene in this seizure of
property nor against the abuse of justice. The fac-
tories were gradually given up after seventy-five days
of negotiations in which the Red Confederation of
Workers dictated their terms to the owners.

In the middle of continuous fighting new elections
loomed up in October and the Fascists for the first
time had their candidates all over the country.

By the autumn of 1920 the economic effects of the
disastrous life which Italy had been living began to be
realised by thousands who had been duped into be-
heving in the Red rising. Against the impressive fall
of the lira, the doUar went to 26.75 ; the franc to 170 ;
and the Swiss franc to 424. In the Bologna region
alone the damage suffered during the past ten months
of agrarian strikes amounted to 122,200,000 lire.

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

The Blackshirt organisationincreased in effectiveness.
The Reds grew more maddened — always driven by
their own extreme Left. The Pro-Russian Sociahsts
in October tried to initiate a “ bloody day ” for all
Italy, and the signal for this was an alarming group of
simultaneous bomb outrages in hotels and restaurants.
The reaction of course led to more bloodshed. Fac-
tion fighting raged everywhere. Reds who would not
shout “ Long live Italy ” were killed by Fascists :
Fascists who would not shout “ Long live Lenin ”
were killed by Reds : and both Reds and Fascists were
alternately coddled and killed by the Government’s
Guardie Regie.

In this month of November 1920 the first Fascist
Trade Union — the Italian Confederation of Economic
Syndicates — was created at Milan and the first Fascio
abroad was constituted. The former represented the
opening move for a co-operation of capital and labour,
and it also represented a set-off to the Sociahst “ Labour
Chambers ” established in every town in Italy. The
latter was an effort to check misrepresentation of
Fascist aims among the Italians abroad where, in
France and elsewhere, they came tmder the direct
propaganda of International Socialists.

As a reaction against Giolitti’s order to Government
troops to drive the forces of d’Annunzio out of Fiume,
the Fascists organised a violent demonstration against
the Government in every province in Central and
Northern Italy. In this they met with Government
opposition and more conflicts broke out. In certain
places like Trieste and Milan the Blackshirts raised
barricades in the streets and an insurrection was
attempted. This failed.

BATTLES WITH THE REDS

The shooting of the ex-servicemen’s leader, a law-
yer called Giordani, in a fracas with Socialists at
Bologna on December 21, 1920, raised the temper of
the Fascists to boiling-point. From then on they
fought as avengers. Four hundred Fascists were
arrested in connection with the insurrection attempt.
The year 1920 closed with Fascism stronger than ever
in numbers and determination, but with all its local
headquarters occupied by the military on the orders
of the Government.

An important event happened at the beginning of
1921 : at the Socialist Congress of Leghorn the
Socialists and Communists broke their official alliance.
It is true that the scission had the immediate result of
making both branches even more extravagant in vio-
lence j but it was the beginning of the end — as far as
a Bolshevist coup in Italy was concerned. The Com-
munists who had fought in the ranks of the " Red
Guards ” left that fighting unit to the Socialists and
created new political shock troops which they called
Arditi del popolo.

Against these the Fascists redoubled their war, and
in turn the Blackshirts became the particular and
selected target for Communist attack. At Modena
they bombed a Fascist funeral procession and in Feb-
ruary a battle was fought in Florence where sixteen
dead and two hundred wounded were left on the
piazzas. An army lorry carrying marines and cara-
binieri to Florence was ambushed by the Communists
and fifteen of the regulars massacred. Public feeling
began to veer violently away from the Reds and
Fascist prestige rose in ratio ; and when on March 23,
1921, Anarchists flung infernal machines among an
innocent audience at the Diana Theatre at Milan,

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

killing twenty and wounding fifty, including children,
infants and women, the Milanese rose in their thou-
sands to aid the Blackshirt avengers.

♦The faction war began to take on a new character.
The Reds, from being the general aggressors whose
policy was wholesale assault, were from now on on the
defensive, but with a system of defence based on
terrorist attacks. The Fascist action squads — ^the
squadnsti — from being the defenders of the public be-
came the punitive arm of the public. The change
was psychological rather than material, for to outward
view the same old fighting went on.

In Istria, Gorizia, Southern Tyrol (Alto Adige) and
the Trentino — that is, in the territory annexed to
Italy from Austria as the result of the war — the
Socialist regime, linked with Internationalist Socialism,
had made it clear to the Slavs and Germanic
population that Italy’s rule over them was a mere
temporary affair that would soon be swept away at the
approaching Red dawn. The people in these regions
believed this — and who could blame them, when
neither the voice nor the authority of Rome ever
reached them. This Socialist teaching opened the
door wide for other propaganda — that of the Slav and
Germano-Austrian Nationalist Associations. The pre-
war status quo seemed complete. The former Slav and
German regional and municipal administration car-
ried on ; the portrait of the defeated Emperor Francis
Joseph still hung in the offices and council chambers
of the town halls ; an official visit of the King of Italy
to Bolzano was boycotted by the natives ; and if the
Red flag was flown on Government buildings it was
only as a makeshift to hold the mast until the Double

BATTLES WITH THE REDS

Eagle could once more be taken out of the chest
and unfurled aloft. The penetration of the Italian
language was completely ruled out and local men
concerned themselves with candidates for the Austrian
Chamber. Everything Italian was systematically be-
littled and ridiculed.

In an examination made by Mussolini he reported
that during this period there was an anti-Italian move-
ment run by the Deutscher Verband, a branch of the
Andreas Hoferbund, with headquarters in Munich. This
association claimed Italy as far south as the suburbs
of Verona. Immediately after the Armistice Italy
expressed its willingness and gave its undertaking to
allow all local customs and languages to remain un-
changed ; but as soon as the Italian troops of occupa-
tion were demobilised the people denied that Austria
had ever lost the war or they their country. Italian
firms and the Italian language were boycotted at the
Bolzano Sample Fair ; pan-German propaganda ran
unchecked ; the Deutscher Verband forbade the dismissal
of the Austrian mayor of Merano ; insults were lev-
elled at the Italian King and Constitution ; the Post
Office was exercised from Innsbruck. Four German
Deputies were returned to the Italian Chamber with
the declared programme of doing nothing but insist
on the Germanity of the Alto Adige. Their aim
was autonomy. These points were later laid before
the Italian Chamber by Mussolini in his maiden
speech.

To the Fascists and especially to the interventionist
elements among them this state of affairs — this “ be-
trayal of Dante, Mazzini, Garibaldi and the seven
hundred thousand dead of the Great War ’’—was like
a red rag to a bull. It increased their fury against the

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

Government which allowed these things to go on un-
checked and it led to a series of punitive raids in these
border areas. It also explains that sternness of the
Fascist Government in later days, for it was a reaction,
not against a non-Italian populace as such, but against
a condition of mind into which that populace had been
duped. It was nevertheless the populace that suffered
during the phase — from 1919 to 1925 — when the
Fascists were recovering the spirit of November 4,
1918 (the Armistice), as the real starting point for
its national transformation process on political and
economic grounds.

While these Fascist raids of the spring of 1921 were
going on in the North and North East the Socialists and
Communists fomid the Blackshirt in wait for them with
attacks and reprisals all over Italy. It developed into
guerilla warfare and between January and May over
six hundred fights involving casualties are recorded.
The Government tried to make peace between these
factions, but in vain. With the occupation of Por-
denone on May 9 the Fascists of the Veneto revealed
that the forces of Mussolini were now capable of ex-
peditions in force. This expedition was carried out
in consequence of the authorities confessing that they
were incapable of dealing with disorders which had
broken out following the murder of a Blackshirt.

Even in these tumultuous times of ever-present con-
flict and immediate harassment, Mussolini had his
vision of a new Italy before his eyes. Addressing the
workmen of Ferrara in April 1921 he told them:
“ Rome is our point of departure and of reference. It
is our symbol and our myth. We dream of a Roman
Italy, that is, an Italy wise, strong, disciplined and
imperial. Much of that imperial spirit surges in

BATTLES WITH THE REDS

Fascism. Roman is our lictor. Roman is our unit
of combattimento. Roman is our pride and courage.”
These words he again repeated on the tenth anniver-
sary of Fascism, dedicating them to the idea of a
Roman, an Augustan peace.

On May 15, 1921, the general elections were held.
This time thirty- three Fascist representatives were re-
turned and at the head of them was the ultra-revolu-
tionary Republican but Fascist Mussolini. For the
first time he now carried his campaign on to the floor
of the House — the Forum Romanum of modern Italy.

CHAPTER XII

OTHER CONFLICTS ; LIBERALS, CLERICALS,
MASONS

Liberal-Democratic Idealists. Adulterated Principles. Lack of Unity.
Socialist Cohesion. Rise of Catholic Popular Party. Don Sturzo's
Christian Socialism. Its Fatal Demagogic Character. Italy the Dupe of
International Socialism. The Masonic R6le. French Influence. Nation-
alist wholehearted and ex-Servicemen' s half-hearted Support of the Fascists.

T he foregoing chapter shows the rise and reaction
of Fascism against the Italian Reds. > If you
remember at the end of Chapter X it was pointed out
that the Red war was but one of the fronts which en-
gaged the attention of the Fascists. There was also the
front against the Constitutional parties ; that against
the “ International ” elements ; and that against the
Paris Peace Treaty delegates and policy.

Sufficient has already been told to indicate the
antagonism and clashes between the Blackshirts and
the Constitutional parties. These Constitutional ele-
ments manoeuvred in vain against the Socialist deluge.
Men of the old school like Nitti and Giolitti, operating
in the name of democracy, were politicians trying to
check the spread of the post-war Bolshevist virus with
doctored drugs from those bottles bearing the faded
and defaced labels of Palmerstonian and Gladstonian
Liberalism.

There were, however, groups in the Chamber and
in the Senate who still represented the pure and
imadulterated principles of the Liberal-Democratic
schools— just as there were thousands of Liberals and
5 ^

OTHER CONFLICTS

Democrats in the country who maintained the stan-
dards of their political creeds. But there was no unity
among them. In sub-expressions of Liberalism they
were mostly split up in groups which crystallized
round the names of particular leaders like Salandra or
Orlando, or who found their response in the philoso-
phies of Benedetto Croce. Leaders and philosophers
were unable to carry their dogmas through the com-
plicated ramifications of Italian political life. All
strength became dissipated and lost in the effort, while
in face of the post-war social menace their voices were
like the pipings of small birds among the howls of
political wolves.

Nevertheless many Liberals, with a determination
that did more honour to their courage than to their
powers of facing facts, suffered and were later mar-
tyred for their theoretical cause,

Giolitti, nominally a Liberal, secured his long fol-
lowing not by the preaching of his faith but by his
system of controlling Italy through provincial office-
bearers whose jobs were the price of their allegiance.
The Prefects were his instruments. Taking nothing
for himself, he developed political corruption as a fine
art. The graft machine which was perfected in pre-
war days failed to functioninthepost-war days of theRed
terror. His Prefects did not like being shot. Fascism
also waged war against these aspects of Liberalism,
but it was not until the events of the autumn of
1922, when the Communists and Socialists had been
eliminated as a national menace, that the Fascist
war was concentrated against the Constitutional
parties.

In the 1919-1920 period under immediate review
the only cohesive and organised party was the Socialist
° 97

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

Party. In that lay very much of its strength. But in
the midst of political turmoil, and almost parallel
with the beginnings of the Fascist programme, there
sprang into being another totally new party which
played a highly important part in the balance of
political power. This was the Popular Party.

The Popular Party was a Catholic Centre party.
Thanks to the peculiar relations existing between
Church and State in Italy following the affairs of the
Risorgimento, Italian Catholics boycotted the politics
of their liberated Italy. This abstentionism had an
official Church flavour, the Holy See in 1 895 assuming
responsibility for the announcement that the notorious
Catholic slogan *' Non expedit ” signified a prohibition.
The boycott proved a boomerang measure and the
non expedit veto gradually became an exception rather
than a rule.

With the Gentiloni agreement of 1913 the Church,
under the Pontiff Pius X., and the State, under Gio-
litti, arranged a modus operandi whereby Catholics could
take part in elections without compromising themselves
with either of their two masters. But in the post-war
upheaval of 1919 the Cathohcs formed their own party
and openly entered the lists as the Italian Popular
Party.

The new party centred round the figure of the priest
Don Luigi Sturzo, secretary and inspirer of the party
and one of the ablest politicians of his epoch. The
programme of the Popular Party, inspired by Christian
ethics, came like a baimer of redemption into the god-
less strife of the Communist-dominated political arena.
The rise of the Popular Party was a phenomenon even
swifter than the rise of Fascism ; by November 1919
the Populars represented nearly a fifth of the Chamber

OTHER CONFLICTS

and their votes came a close second after those of the
orthodox Socialist Party.

It concentrated on the organising of non-subversive
trade unions, but it adopted the demagogic trade-
union principles which, in effect, divided master and
man. This fact proved its ultimate undoing when
confronted with the uncompromising legions of the
Fascisti.

Don Sturzo, suspended between the Church and
State ; given full authority by neither yet responsible
to both — had a task of the kind which foreshadows
political and in a sense personal martyrdom. Subtle
and adaptive, he developed the progress of his Party,
pursuing the line of least resistance. He did this by
steadily insinuating Christian Socialism into the
general Socialist body politic. In agrarian centres
this had great success. But although abjured from
violence, the co-operation of his peasant followers with
the Socialist “ White ” peasants in their seizures of
land sometimes made the line of differentiation diffi-
cult to define.

Don Sturzo also manoeuvred his Party as a balance
of power in the flux of parties and groups in the
lobbies of the Chamber. This meant that his Party
became just another factor in the old game of parlia-
mentarianism. With the return of Giolitti this method
had been revived with all its evils, so that Don Sturzo,
despite his Christian idealism, contributed to that
blighting process which was to lead to the final disin-
tegration of the democratic system of government in
Italy. Don Sturzo was therefore assailed by the
Fascists because his Party was considered as a some-
time flanking support of the Socialists ; because
he was considered to contribute to demoralising

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

parliamentarianism ; because the F ascists were on prin-
ciple against the idea of the Church, through its clerics,
mbdng in the affairs of the State ; and, principally,
because the Popular Party trade unions, like other
existing unions, were the negation of Fascist trade
unionism with its theories of co-operation. Had
there been no social turmoil in Italy, the Popular
Party trade unions would doubtless have evolved
towards the abstract idea of co-operation ; but Don
Sturzo tried by peaceful penetration and influence to
reach an ideal which Mussolini was ultimately to
realise through open conflict and revolutionary in-
transigence. His methods were not fitted to the
times.

In a sense Mussolini also included the Populars in
his antagonism against international influences. Al-
though not representing the Vatican, the clerical
flavour of the Populars, with their priest-leader Don
Sturzo, identified them with the Church politically
militant — and to Mussolini the immersion of the
Church in the secular affairs of Italy recalled the ties
which in the name of the Church had bound Italy
through the ages to the successive yokes of the Holy
Roman Empire, of the Habsburgs and of France.

In a like “ internationalist ” sense, though of course
for very different reasons, he combated the Commun-
ists and Socialists as internationalists who were at-
tempting to work out universal ideas at the expense of
Italy’s hard- won nationalism. The Communists repre-
sented the long arm of Soviet Russia, against whom,
however, Mussolini had no quarrel as long as it
confined its social experiments to Russia.

The international Socialists he denounced as the
agents and dupes of the ex-enemies — for was it not
zoo

OTHER CONFLICTS

through them that the peace-defeatist propaganda
found its widest outlet among the new foreign minori-
ties inside the “ redeemed ” frontiers ? “ The Socialist
Congress of Berne,” said Mussolini in the Popolo
d'ltalia of February i8, 1919, “ would throw us once
more in chains below the feet of the Hohenzollerns.”

Although in his pre-war revolutionary Socialist days
Mussolini had led the resolution (at the turbulent
Socialist Congress of Ancona) that Freemasonry and
Socialism were incompatible, it was a different shade
of reasoning that led him to continue his war against
Masonry in this post-war Fascist period. The Italian
Freemasons, Francophile in tendency, had thrown the
weight of their tremendous influence in favour of in-
tervention in the war and had worked strongly for that
end — although the infiltration of masonicaUy ap-
pointed officers in the army did not guarantee that
the best and most competent soldiers were in com-
mand. By 1917, however, the prestige which the
Masons as interventionists had gained in 1915 was
counteracted by the belief that in June of 1917 a
Masonic Congress in Paris, with the concurrence of
the Italian delegates, had agreed to work for a peace
programme which denied to Italy all the frontier
objectives for which she had indeed entered the war
at aU. And so, when in 1919-1920 the Allies were
discussing the Peace terms in Paris, it was felt that
the Grand Orient of France was taking Italian
Masonry in tow as the agents of a peace which would,
like the Socialist peace discussed at Berne, place Italy
once more in subjugation to her traditional — ^but now
conquered — foes.

This leaves us to deal with the fourth and most
difficult “ front ” on which the Fascists waged war- —

lOI

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

that of the Peace delegates at Paris ; with Fiume as a
battle-centre. As the 1919-1920 events in Paris have
repercussions which basically affect the sequence of
Mussolini’s foreign policy right up to today — and to
unknown tomorrows — it is important, even at the risk
of being tedious, to make a fairly complete examina-
tion of the facts.

. Before leaving the question of the parties and passing
to the Paris Peace Conference it is necessary to record
that there were also parties which gave support to the
Blackshirts in these fighting days — the same parties
which had ralhed together in the pre-war days of the
intervention campaign. The Nationalists, with a will
as strong but with means less bellicose, threw them-
selves into the fray against the subversives. Their
fighting Blueshirt squads often fought shoulder to
shoulder with the Blackshirts. In fact, in the Rome
districts they were for long more in evidence than the
Fascists as the champions of order against disorder.

The poet d’Armunzio also banded together a fight-
ing group, but his exploits and those of his men are
almost exclusively identified with events in Fiume —
arising out of the unwelcome decisions of the Paris
Peace Conference,

It would have been thought that the ex-servicemen
would have particularly rallied to the insignia of
Mussolini. Thousands of them did — but as individuals
at this epoch — ^not as an organised hloc. They had
formed their associations — ex-Service and War
Wounded — ^but had not yet orientated themselves
away from the powerful propaganda poured on them
by the Socialists. The associations as such stood aloof
— the individual members going either Extreme Right
or Extreme Left or doing nothing in a mood of exas-
102

OTHER CONFLICTS

perated disgruntlement. The attitude of the ex-
soldiers towards Fascism was also complicated by the
fact that many of them were Masons. By igsao, how-
ever, the associations and the great majority of their
members swung into sympathy, but not yet into co-
operation, with the Fascists^

103

CHAPTER XIII
THE DEBACLE AT VERSAILLES

§ D’ANNUNZIO JUMPS A CLAIM

Peace Conference Hopes. Wilson the God-man. A Shattered Idol.
Itah's Peace Claims. Complications with Greece. The Response.
“ Piume or Death." The Italians dig Themselves in. Americans in
Fiume. Mussolini at Piume.

D’Annunzio marches on Fiume. Forms a “ Constitution." Fantastic
Style. Origin of the Blackshirt. Giolitti back in Power. He creates
Fiume a " coipus separatum." Consequent conflicts. Allied conference on
Fiume opened.

T he high hopes raised by the victory of Vittorio
Veneto were speedily dashed at the table of the
Peace Conference in Paris.

As we have seen at the end of Chapter IX, Italy’s
ambitions had been qualified in some directions and
extended in others. The fortunes of war which had
coincided with the negotiations for the 1917 Rome
agreement concerning the future of Yugoslavia saw an
Italy strained and anxious — a different Italy from that
which in less than a year from that date was to inflict
on the enemy what was perhaps the only conclusive
pitched battle in the whole history of the war.

Convinced, not without reason, that the Italian
victory had directly precipitated the coUapse of the
Central Powers, Italy, to the urgent shouts of the
Nationalist elements, looked to the Peace Conference
for her prize, namely, the fulfilment of the 1915 Pact
of London. Whson was hailed as the God-man come
to end wars by so dividing the spoils that the con-
104

THE DEBACLE AT VERSAILLES

querors would be satiated and the conquered paralysed
for all time.

Disillusionment was swift — as far as the satiation of
Italy was concerned. When Wilson paid a visit to the
Italian capital in 1919 he was at once enrolled as an
honorary citizen of Rome. Within a few weeks his
name was execrated, though it still stands engraved
along with those of such illustrious citizens as Virgil,
and Petrarch on the tablets of the Capitol. The first
disillusionment arose from the fact that Wilson did not
recognise the 1915 Pact of London. He did not ap-
prove of its terms and said, moreover, that he had not
been officially informed of its clauses before or during
Ameriea’s entry into the war. The precise details of the
Pact of London were in fact not known with certainty
to the British public until they were published from the
Russian secret documents by the Russian revolu-
tionaries in the winter of 1917 ; but its general
provisions had been an open secret almost from before
the ink had dried on the signatures of its four cham-
pions, Grey, Gambon, Imperiali and Benckendorff.

Wilson was antagonistic to it. The Revolution
Russians had of course already repudiated it. The
British and the French acknowledged on principle
their obligations : but, with the document apparently
compromised, Lloyd George confused its issues on the
one hand with his own Grecian schemes and on the
other with compliance in Wilson’s Yugoslav prefer-
ences. Clemenceau gave it a sort of staccato attention,
searching the letter rather than the spirit of the Pact,
inveighing against it wherever it threatened to en-
croach on French interests present or potential. The
supplementary Treaty of St. Jean, touching the par-
tition of Turkey, was also compromised bv the fact

ro5

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

that Russia was no longer an Ally— although it is
difficult to understand why this should affect it,
as its terms involved only Russia’s “ expression of
opinion ” and not its veto.

In this unfavourable atmosphere the Italian dele-
gate Orlando began his work as one of the “ Big
Four ” at Paris. While Italy was plunged into the
social chaos described in the last two chapters, the
diplomatic battle of the Allies at the Peace Conference
waged wearily along, with, on Italian questions, Wilson
sulking, Lloyd George sailing on side winds, Clemen-
ceau growling, and Orlando alternately protesting,
weeping and making slam-door exits.

Foreseeing that the claim to the section of the Dal-
matian seaboard would be considerably curtailed
owing to the Wilsonian thesis of self-determination and
that the strategic justification of giving that coast to
Italy would be negatived in view of the prospective
new state of Yugoslavia plus a League of Nations, the
Italians took a leaf out of the Wilsonian book and
demanded a plebiscite for the town and port of Fiume
on the Adriatic, claiming it to be not only Italian but
Italianissima,

Italy asked for (i) the “ unredeemed ” territory on
the basis of the 1915 Pact of London, (2) colonial
compensation at the expense of Germany on the same
basis, (3) colonial compensation at the expense of
Turkey on the basis of the tributary Pact, (4) repara-
tions, and (5) a Fiume plebiscite, in accordance with
the Wilsonian self-determination formula.

In spite of the fact that all these items were settled
in a maimer unsatisfactory to Italy, and in spite of the
fact that during the actual negotiations it was obvious
that things were going unfavourably for the Italians
106

THE DEBACLE AT VERSAILLES

in a general sense, the Italian delegation and the
Italian public (or rather the non-Socialist Italian
public) became obsessed with one point in their
programme — Fiume. Fiume became “ the Adriatic
problem ” and as such it inflamed Italian passions
until the other problems, all much more important,
were allowed to fade out before it. At the Peace Con-
ference Italy revealed no statesmanship, no breadth of
view, nothing but a frantic concentration on acquiring
Fiume — a port without hinterland ; a port which in
its potential competition with the new Italian posses-
sion of Trieste and the old port of Venice must have
been obviously, even then, an unwanted encumbrance.
But, thanks to the poetic frenzy of d’Annunzio, it be-
came a symbol of Italianity and therefore “ sacred.”
As Nitti, who was no friend of the Fascists and who was
also no friend of Orlando’s, says in his book, VEuropa
senza Pace : “ During the Conference in Paris Italy
took practically no interest in the problems which
affected Europe, of people, of raw materials or of the
new States, but concentrated her strength on the
question of Fiume.”

Let us see how Italy fared in her five above-noted
demands, (i) Unredeemed territory : she got the
Pact of London Alpine watershed line by the Brenner
on the north and the Julian line with the Istrian penin-
sula, all according to the Pact. (2) Colonial com-
pensation at the expense of Germany ; as a set-off
against mandated territory to Britain in Africa of
1)825,950 square kilometres and 752,200 square kilo-
metres to France and 54,000 square kilometres to
Belgium, Italy was promised Upper Jubaland. (In
1924 an area of go,ooo square kilometres was ceded by
Britain.) (3) Colonial compensation at the expense

107

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

of Turkey : Smyrna, contrary to Italian expectations,
was left to Greece — a gift which led to the post-Great-
War Greco-Turkish War, which in turn led to Grecian
disaster. Eventually, when this position was somewhat
cleared by the 1990 Treaty of Sevres, Italy’s claims
to the abandoned rights of the Sultan in Libya and the
Aegean Dodecanese Islands were confirmed. A
tripartite agreement was then also signed recognising
“ the special interests of Italy in Southern Anatolia.”
The Kemalist reaction against the Sevres Treaty
annulled by force of arms all the chances and advan-
tages which Italy might have had in Anatolia.

By way of compensation for the huge mandated
territories taken by Britain and France, Italy was
oflered a mandate over Georgia — which was then an
independent country and only wanted military aid
against Bolshevist Russia, which soon overran and
took it. Italy wisely refused this mandate.

In North Africa Italy was promised, by Britain, the
rectification of her Girenaica frontier with Egypt.
(This was accomplished in 1925, the Egyptian Govern-
ment completing the British obligation.) Italy was
promised, by the French, the rectification of her
Tripolitania-Tunisia-Sahara frontier. (This, a slight
matter merely involving facilities for a camel route was
eventually accomplished.) Italy asked the rectifica-
tion of her southern Libyan frontier and advanced her
claims, as the succession state to the Sultan’s territory,
to the lands leading to Lake Chad. This was practi-
cally all refused. Some of the oases commanding the
northern approaches to Chad were offered to Italy if
she would occupy them at once and guarantee to
protect the French Sahara from Arab tribal raids.
The Italian Government, at the time, as we have
108

THE DEBACLE AT VERSAJLLESS

seen, could not guarantee itself against Communist
raids in the cities of Italy, far less Arab raids in the
heart of the Sahara ! So this offer, like the equally
impossible Georgian one, was declined with thanks.
(4) Reparations : Italy got her quota for repara-
tion, but the figure and_its subsequent adjustments
concern European history as such rather than Fascist
affairs. (5) The Fiume plebiscite and the Adriatic :
on this fateful issue the Italians began their discussions
with one material advantage. This was the fact that
in accordance with the Armistice terms the Italians
were entitled to occupy all strategic points on the
Adriatic seaboard. So they quietly established them-
selves in all the places earmarked for them in the
much disputed Secret Treaty of London. Even in
diplomacy possession is nine points of the law.

In addition to occupying points definitely assignable
by the Treaty, they also placed their military forces
at locations designated independent and neutral, like
the area round the Gulf of Cattaro, and in Albania.

And they also planted themselves on one special
point which did not appear in the Treaty at all —
Fiume, where Groat troops had also quietly dug them-
selves in. In fact, when the Peace delegates first fore-
gathered in Paris, the Italians were already in posses-
sion of all, and a little more, of the European territory
to which they considered themselves entitled by the
laws of right and conquest. To ease the situation a
little, the Groat troops in Fiume were withdrawn and
substituted by Americans.

To understand the mood of Italy at that time, it
must be remembered that all the regions occupied by
them I'epresented, on the north and north-east, land
which they had redeemed with the sacrifice of blood

'iHROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD ROWER

and treasure “ in the name of the sacred aspirations of
the now-fulfilled Risorgimento ” ; while, on the Adria-
tic east, the occupied regions represented land over
which they also had spilled blood and treasure in
rescuing the Serbian army, the Serbian King and the
Serbian refugees from annihilation and capture by the
Austro-Germanic armies, and in protecting Albania
and Montenegro from being overrun.

The embryo Yugoslav State, however, saw a menace
to their plans of independence in these Adriatic ports
of Armistice occupation, so on petition to the Entente,
the Italians withdrew from some points and the re-
maining Italian occupation was changed to, or rather
supplemented by, inter-Allied occupations at crucial
places, including Fiume, No sooner was this done than
incidents began to break out, and conflicts, especially
with the French troops at Fiume, added irritation and
danger to the whole European Entente situation,
already critical enough.

Becoming fixed with the idea of possessing Fiume,
the Italians began a violent propaganda for their
cause. “ Patriotic ” associations sprang up locally
and on the peninsula, with activities which split
opinion in Socialist-ridden Italy and ran counter to
the moves of wavering Governments whose “ imperial-
ism ” was subject to the exactions of electioneering
“ platforms.”

Fascists, Nationalists and many ex-Servicemen
threw themselves vigorously into the campaign, de-
manding the annexation of Fiume to Italy on all sorts
of grounds from sentimental to strategic. It was also
alleged that British shipping interests were working
for the preservation of a non-ItaHan Fiume. The port
had been the Adriatic outlet of Hungary, and with the
no

THE DEBACLE AT VERSAILLES

repartition of its hinterland all shipping traffic would
be killed — as it has been. This aspect of the case,
together with the anger against the Allied handling
of the whole Conference in Paris, caused the Italian
annexationists to include all the Allies in their polemi-
cal attacks.

In May 1919, just one month before the Versailles
Treaty was signed, Mussolini visited Fiume and, speak-
ing in the Teatro Verdi, denounced “ the incredible
ingratitude of France, the bad faith of the prophet
Wilson and the imperialist aspirations of Anglo-
Saxons and Greeks ” — which were causing Italy “ to
lose the benefits to which she was entitled.” As a
solution he announced that “ the first thing to be
done is to banish foreigners from the Mediterranean,
beginning with the English.” As a general outline he
suggested : “We must give every possible aid to
the revolutionary movement in Egypt — that ancient
Roman colony, the natural granary of Italy, which has
200,000 Itahans among its inhabitants. There is also
Malta, where an Italian irredentist movement has
been set on foot. As for France, she must lose her
Mediterranean Empire, beginning with Tunis, which
is already Italian by its population. And what will
happen to Fiume ? The question is already settled.
Just as Italy made herself, so must Fiume act for her-
self. The decisions of the four old idiots in Paris will
have no effect on the sanction of the Italian people.”

This speech reveals the excited and uncompromising
mood under which the Fascists and the Nationalists
laboured. It was a speech made “ in the name of the
sacred dead,” In conclusion Mussolini exclaimed
that “just as Italy had entered the war of 1915 with
the cry of War or a Republic, the country’s cry today

III

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

is ‘ Fiume or Death.’ ” That evening a call was made
for a volunteer corps for the annexation of the town.
The drilling of this corps added still another anxiety
to the (constitutional) Italian and AlHed occupying
forces ; but the movement spread and “ Fiume or
Death ” became another battle-cry in the social
derangement of Italy.

In the midst of this ferment the soldier poet Gabriele
d’Annunzio suddenly sprang into world limelight.
Gathering a group of followers around him at Ronchi,
near Trieste, he marched on Fiume, entered the town
and occupied it in the name of Italy. His forces,
known as the Legionaries of Ronchi joined up with
the swelling numbers of the “ Fiume or Death ”
legionaries and their joint methods were those of the
Mussolini Blackshirts on the peninsula, save that in-
stead of opposing only Communists and demagogues
tliey defied the Italian Government itself, plus the
Allied troops of occupation.

The poet set up a “ National Council,” framed a
“ Constitution ” and organised things on a picturesque
and, to the northern mind, opera-bouffe basis. But it
was play-acting with real bullets in the guns. Many
of his emblems and much of his symboHsm were
adopted by the Fascists, to whom to this day he re-
mains a great if somewhat aloof hero, living at his
fantastic house on Lake Garda, with the title of Prince
of Montenevoso, named after the frontier mountain of
that name.

Maps I, 2 and 3 contain, except for the North
African hinterlands, the vital points of reference
mentioned in this chapter.

Post-war events as far as the fighting Fascists were
concerned did not allow much time or opportunity for
IIS

V POl 1 TN \RMS

Oabnele d’ \nminzio sunoundcd b\ his Geileral Slair^” makiut^ his first opt n air additss m riume after liis seizuie
and OL cu]') ilioa of that seaport in in the name of Ital> and tn dc/iaritt t i iht Ii iJian Goxtjjimtnt and the Big

Four at \ ers ullcs {PI olo b% cointes\ of 1/? Thomas of ihe hmttd Pitsi^ of h rritf >

THE DEBACLE AT VERSAILLES

picturesque display. Business was too serious for uni-
forms or parades. It was not until after the Fiume
affair in 192 1 that the black shirt was generally worn as
an officially recognised dress of Mussolini’s followers.
The black shirt is a derivation from the jiamme nere
which decorated the tunic collars of the war-time
Arditi shock troops. Different regiments have different
coloured patches of cloth cut like zig-zag pennons and
sewn on the collar. They are known as “ flames,” and
“ black flames ” and the death’s head of the Arditi
were dedicated by early ex-service adherents to the
Fascist cause. The next step from the sewn jiamme was
the introduction of a black scarf Garibaldi had made
all Italy familiar with the idea of a coloured shirt as
the symbol of a liberating cause, so the change from
black scarf to black shirt was a natural suggestion when
increasing numbers and more formal assemblies de-
manded a distinctive dress of recognition. The Fas-
cists had also the example of the Blueshirt Nationalists
before them.

Gabriele d’Annunzio let loose the full powers of his
invective against the Allies in turn. When it came to
England’s turn he said, in a typical passage here
quoted from the Vedetta d" Italia ; “ Fiume is as invin-
cible as she has ever been. True, we may all perish
beneath her ruins, but from these same ruins the
spirit will rise again strong and vigorous. From the
indomitable Sinn Fein of Ireland to the Red Flag
which unites cross and crescent in Egypt, rebellions
of the spirit, catching fire from our sparks, will bum
afresh against the devourers of raw flesh, and the
oppressors of unarmed nations. The voracious Em-
pire which has possessed itself of Persia, Mesopotamia,
New Arabia and a great part of Africa, and yet is never
H 113

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

satisfied, can, if it so wishes, send its aviator-murderers
against us, just as in Egypt it was not ashamed to
massacre insurgents, who were armed with nothing
more than sticks.” England, however, sent no “ avia-
tor-murderers ” but let the poet stew in his own
rhetoric. It was Giolitti who did the “ murdering ”
by ordering an Italian battleship to bombard the head-
quarters of the National Council,

In election clamour against the Home policy and
the Peace Conference policy of Nitti that Minister was
swept from office and, as already noted, Giolitti was,
with almost equal desperation, swept back into power.
Determined — against the rising temper of the country
and the increasing strength of the Fascists — to expel
d’Anmmzio from Fiume, Giolitti, with Count Sforza
as Foreign Minister, signed the November 12, 1920,
Treaty of Rapallo with Yugoslavia. This treaty,
among other things objectionable to Fascist opinion,
recognised the independence of Fiume as a “ corpus
separatum” At the same time Albania was evacuated
and the clashes between the Blackshirts and the
Government forces broke out all over Italy as an
additional war to that of Blackshirts versus Reds al-
ready described.

In May 1920 Giolitti had already ordered the
blockade and bombardment of Fiume — measures half-
heartedly done by troops whose sympathies were
largely with the victims of their orders. By 1921
negotiations for a “ conference ” of the Allies on the
Fiume question had been opened and were moving
along, while in the town many parades were held and
considerable blood spilled in an atmosphere which
became ever more complicated on account of econo-
mic as well as political shortcomings.

114

THE DEBACLE AT VERSAILLES

Now I must ask the reader to perform the not too
easy task of superimposing the sequence of post-war
events from November igi8 to May 1921 described
sectionally in this and the previous three chapters —
“> Mussolini Raises his Flag,” “ Battles with the Reds
and other Conflicts,” and" The Debacle of Versailles.”
The sum-total of these extraordinary happenings repre-
sent in some measure the state of Italy when Mussolini
was elected to Parliament — his hand against everyone.
An appreciation of these prevailing conditions will
allow an understanding of all that lay behind his first
speech in the Chamber — a speech which is an impor-
tant landmark in the history of Fascist progress and
policy — the first official step towards what was to be-
come world-power,

CHAPTER XIV

MUSSOLINI ENTERS PARLIAMENT

His Place in the Chamber. Maiden Speech. Alto Adige Again. Foreign
Affairs. He attacks Communist Doctrines. Co-operation of Classes and
of Capital and Labour foreshadowed. Roman Peace with Vatican also
foreshadowed. He offers factional Disarmament. Fascism and Violence.
Mussolini's Rhetorical Method. Clear Vision of Future.

W HEN Mussolini, firebrand revolutionary and un-
orthodox patriot — more accustomed to the
barricades, the public squares, prison and the leader-
writer’s desk than to the formalities of the Chamber —
first took his seat as a Fascist Deputy in the Parliament
which he had so often and so thoroughly reviled, he
selected a place at the extreme right top-hand corner
of the amphitheatre of benches facing the Presidential
bench. For some time he did not open his mouth.
Lean, not with the leanness of a naturally thin man, but
lean with the struggle of life in which Italia came
always before self, he sat there watching, watching,
watching. The bigness of his determined jaw at that
epoch was outdone by the bigness of his eyes. They
blazed as he looked from face to face studying his
opponents.

Around him were massed his thirty-two fellow
Fascists, all of them equally unorthodox and with a
devil-may-care look about them that was disconcert-
ing. Mussolini was thirty-eight years old and the
average age of his fellow Blackshirt deputies was
twenty-nine. In support and seated next to the Fascist
group were seventeen Nationalists. This bloc of

Ji6

MUSSOLINI ENTERS PARLIAMENT

forty-nine faced the 400 odd hostile deputies, ranged
in their formidable Centre blocs under Giolitti and
the Populars, and the compact Socialist bloc with its
big Communist tail on the extreme left facing the
Fascists across the well of the House.

Apart from the cohorts of the Socialists, the legions
of the Fascisti and the inner circles of the electioneering
factions, Mussolini at this phase had no particularly
outstanding place in the political gallery as far as the
general masses of the public were concerned. His
name was known, but it was not yet one which counted
in the popular imagination as anything particularly
constructive. The few non-political people today who
can recall meeting and appreciating Mussolini when
he first came to Rome as a simple deputy preen them-
selves as pioneers of prophecy. Perhaps that more
than anything else can convey an idea of the place
he held. In other words — if he had failed in the
summer of igai he would never have been heard of
outside the byways of parliamentary Milanese and
party annals. But he did not fail ; and those in the
Chamber who were rebuffed in any attempt to
patronise the new deputy little imagined that he was
Italy’s “ Man of Destiny ”.

Mussolini made his first speech as a deputy on the
debate which followed the Crown Speech delivered
by the Liberal Premier Giolitti. It was June 21, 1921,
and the Chamber was packed — and stifling in the
summer heat. The speech is of importance in any
survey of Fascism : it represents not only the first
official exposition of Fascist policy towards specific
questions confronting the country, but it reveals the
first formal indications of Fascist principles which
now form part and parcel of the State.

IX?

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

Declaring that his matter would be “ anti-demo-
cratic, anti-Socialist — and, being anti-Socialist, also
anti-Giolittian,” he passed at once to an attack on
Giolitti’s claim that the Alpine barrier was all in Italy’s
power. Mussolini then gave in detail “ the result
of my personal enquiry into the Alto Adige situation.”
The data given in my earlier chapter dealing with
Tyrol conditions in 1919-1920 are partly taken from
this report of Mussolini’s enquiry. In conclusion,
Mussolini demanded the dissolution of the Deutscher
Verband^ the immediate deposition of certain pan-
German officials, the creation of a new Province and
the strict observance of bilinguality in all public and
administrative acts. He also told the four German
deputies “ to tell them beyond the Brenner and there
make it known that we are at the Brenner and that we
will remain there at all costs.” This straight talk got
the applause of the Government, the Premier Giolitti
intervening to declare, “ We are all agreed on that.”

' He then turned to the Adriatic frontier and attacked
Giolitti for the Treaty of Rapallo and the consequent
bombardment of Fiume. Criticising the Government’s
policy vis-d-vis Yugoslavia, he asked a question which
reveals that his beUef in the necessity of Peace Treaty
revision is a thing of no recent birth. In fact we have
already seen it at the time of the Fascist foundation
Constituent. He asked ; “ What are the orientations
of our foreign policy in face of the vast furnace of dis-
cord which the Peace Treaty, or rather the various
non-Peace Treaties, have left in all parts of the
world ? ”•

Mussolini, whose party had been swept up on to the
political platform by the convulsive upheaval of home
affairs, surprised the Chamber by thereafter entering
118

MUSSOUm ENTERS PARLIAMENT

'upon what is now recognised as a typically Musso-
linian schematic survey of foreign affairs. His special
wrath was reserved for the pusillanimity of the Gov-
ernment in abandoning Montenegro into the hands
of Serbia, and he spoke against the British Zionist
movement in Palestine, adding in parenthesis that his
words were not to be taken as indicating any anti-
semitism, “ which would be something new in this
Chamber, which recognises, as I recognise, that the
sacrifice of blood given by Italian Jews in the war was
most great and generous.”,

Concluding his observations on the Giolitti Govern-
ment’s foreign policy by declaring that the Blackshirts
would always be in opposition to the “ sceptical ”
“ blasS'^ and “ career” style of Count Sforza, Mus-
solini turned to home affairs and defined the attitude
of Fascism towards other parties, beginning with the
Communists.

In one sentence he revealed the basic weakness of
Communism : “ Communism is a doctrine which
sprouts in times of misery and desperation. When
property and possessions are decimated, the first
thought that springs into the human mind is to divide
all things in common so that there may be a little for
everyone. But that is only the first phase of Com-
munism — the phase of consumption. After that there
is the phase of production — which is enormously
difficult. It is so difficult that even that great and
formidable expert, who answers to the name of
Vladimir Ulianoff Lenin, has found it more refiractory
than bronze or marble when he has to work with
human material.”

Turning then to the Italian Communists he said ;
“ I know you because some of you are my spiritual

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

children. I know you with a sincerity which may
appear cynical because I was the first to infect you
when I introduced into the circulation of Italian
Sociahsm a little of Bergson mixed with much Blanqui.
The neo-spirituahstic philosophies with their continu-
ous fluctuations between the metaphysical and the
lyrical are most pernicious for small brains. These
philosophies taste fine to the palate, but you’ve got to
digest them. Those of my friends, or enemies.”
(Cries from the Extreme Left, “ Enemies.”) “ That
at any rate is specific. Very well, then. Those of my
enemies who swallowed Bergson at twenty-five have
not yet digested him.

“ As long as Communists talk of dictatorship of the
proletariat or of a more or less preciously absurd re-
public there can be nothing but conflict between us.”

In this declaration we see foreshadowed Mussolini’s
system of co-operation of the classes to which he
referred more definitely when in this speech he dealt
with the Itahan Socialist group. He drew a distinc-
tion between those aspects of Italian Socialism which
represented a movement of workers as such and a
political party. To trade-union programmes which
faced economic realities, improved social legislation
and safeguarded the workmen he lent his approval
and support, but only when detached from the Social-
ist political party and its doctrines. In a phrase which
is the essence of his revolution he said : “We deny
the existence of two classes, because there are many
more than two classes. We deny that all human his-
tory can be explained in terms of economics. We
deny your internationalism. That is a luxury article
which only the elevated can practise, because peoples
are passionately bound to their native soil.

MUSSOLINI ENTERS PARLIAMENT

“ We affirm that the true story of capitalism is now
beginning, because capitalism is not a system of op-
pression only, but is also a selection of values, a co-
ordination of hierarchies, a more amply developed
sense of individual responsibility.”

Mussolini then turned to the Popular Party. He
recalled that the Fascists neither preached nor prac-
tised anti-clericalism. Citing seveial points from the
Popular Party’s policy concerning social and educa-
tional institutions, Mussolini expressed himself in
accord, but he indicated that there was something
greater between the Church of Rome and the Italian
State than mere party play ; “ I affirm that the Latin
and Imperial tradition of Rome is represented by
Catholicism . . . and I think that if the Vatican defin-
itely renounced its temporalistic dreams — and I be-
lieve that it is already on that road — Italy conld fur-
nish the Vatican with the material help that a profane
Power has at its disposition.” From this it can already
be seen that it was the historical and not a religious
impulse which moved Mussolini towards the Recon-
ciliation affected eight years later.

With reference to the question of Church and State
it may be noted at this point that the tension of the
“ Roman Question ” during these post-war years had
considerably lessened. I have already made reference
in an earlier chapter to the fact that the rise of a new
generation brought a more dispassionate mentality to
consideration of this problem. The passage of years
also made it abundantly clear that Italy had come to
stay. Negotiations were therefore opened as early as
1918 for a rapprochement It was discovered, however,
that as long as the subject lay undiscussed then the
existing nominally unilateral modus vioendi worked

ISI

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

reasonably well ; but as soon as the topic was tabled
in the Chamber the parties aroused old passions and
no progress was made. Orlando, in faihng to reach an
agreement in 1918, admitted that only a strong Gov-
ernment could carry through any such reconcili-
ation. .The Premiers Nitti, Bonomi, Giolitti and de
Facta — whose years of office spanned 1919-1922 — all
failed in their efforts to solve the Roman Question.
Giolitti indeed finally dismissed it as insoluble, saying
that ” parallels could only meet in infinity.’,’

Concluding his first Chamber speech as a deputy
with a reference to the conflicts, armed conflicts, of
the parties in Italy, Mussolini said that it was use-
less for Giolitti to say that he wished to restore the
authority of the State. “ The task is enormously
difficult because there are already three or four
States in Italy who contend for the probable or
possible exercise of power. To save the State it is
necessary to perform a surgical operation.” As for
Fascist violence, he offered to disarm and to desist
if the other parties would do likewise. He also called
on all parties to disarm in spirit as a supreme necessity
of peace.

“ .Violence for us is not a system, it is not a code and
less still is it a sport. It is a hard necessity to which
we are put. But let me add — ^we are ready to disarm
if you in yom turn also disarm, above all in spirit. . . .
We are all at a decisive period ; loyalty for loyalty.
Before we lay down our weapons, disarm your spirit.”
It is interesting to reflect that this formula for home
faction disarmament is practically the same as that
which Mussolini advances today for Emopean national
disarmament,'

The speech made a great stir. It had an incisiveness

MUSSOLINI ENTERS PARLIAMENT

unusual in the Italian Chamber. It was straight
hitting — Left and Right.

It had also that discomfiting quality which was later
to be developed as one of Mussolini’s most formidable
and subtle rhetorical diplomatic methods both in home
and foreign affairs ; that of inferring the responsibility
of others. A problem is defined ; its Fascist solution
involving reciprocal conditions is tabled ; a refusal of
the other side to accept these reciprocal conditions is
claimed as inferring non-Fascist responsibility for the
consequent continuation and aggravation of the prob-
lem and also infers consequent Fascist self-protective
freedom of action fortified by self-righteousness. The
possible fallacy lies in the original definition of the
problem. This is just an interpellated thought which
occurs on re-reading this first Chamber speech — a
reflection on the method and not on the substance of
that historic and indicative discourse.

For the purposes of this history we are more directly
concerned with the substance : in that we can see
the continuity from the past in the fact that first and
foremost Mussolini deals with the question of Italy’s
northern frontiers and Adriatic gateways. The torch
from the beacon of Dante, thrown forward by Mazzini
to rekindle in the cannon flames of Vittorio Veneto,
almost quenched by the blows of scythe and hammer,
but seized and whirled aloft by d’Annunzio, re-
glimmers with steadier rays caught up by Mussolini
confronting Parliament.

This speech is also of interest because (supple-
mented by his leading articles in the Popoto d Italia)
it shows that MussoUni’s thoughts on great questions
such as co-operation between capital and labour, the
corporative system, reconciliation between Church

123

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

and State, and Rome as the recovered centre of uni-
versal ideas were already present in his mind long
before he ever came into power or had indeed any
reasonable prospect of ever assuming power.

Those who make the wrong kind of criticism against
Mussolini and Fascism are fond of saying that the
original Blackshirts had a programme based only on
opportunism and that Mussolini throughout the years
has added new developments to his creed always on
that opportunistic basis. Evidence, as we have seen
and shall further see, reveals that from the first hour
Mussolini possessed a clear vision of what are now the
established and greatest achievements of his regime.
What deceives the superficial critic is this : Mussolini
often in an almost casual and abstract manner in-
cludes in his early speeches references to his principles
of policy, and it is not perhaps until years later that
he — and usually with almost dramatic suddenness —
proceeds to apply them or to advocate them as issues
for immediate solution. In other words, he voices
his ideas, then keeps them latent until the most
favourable moment for their application and deliver-
ance, be it days or years. In “ timing ” his political
and diplomatic punches Mussolini is a past-master.

But we must pull ourselves away from reflections on
Mussolini’s speeches in general and his first Chamber
speech in particular in order to rejoin him, as observers,
once more in the fray of action among the political
and faction wars which stfll raged despite his plea for
disarmament of hand and spirit.

CHAPTER XV
TOWARDS REVOLUTION

Resignation oj Giolitli. Socialist Premier Bonomi, 6000 Fascists assail
Ravenna. The Sarzana Ambush. A Fascist-Socialist Truce. Fascist
Split. Mussolini resigns Office. Resignation Rejected. Fascist Congress
Convened. Mussolini Insists on Unity as Price of Leadership. Unity
Proclaimed. Mussolini Returns. Preparing to Become a Regular
Parliamentary Parly. The Monarchy Qjtestion. Mussolini’s views.
Republicanism Jettisoned. Reasons. The Garibaldi Parallel. The
Army and the Industrialists. Liberal Overtures. Udine Speech.
Crystallization of Doctrines. Congress of Rome Again. Fascists Become
an Inscribed Party. The Communists’ Last Strike. Broken by Black-
shirts. Election of Achille Ratti as Pope. Importance to History of
Fascism : Reasons. Facta Becomes Premier. Motion Depresied. Foreign
Policy Failures. Mussolini Ready for March on Rome.

A fter Mussolini’s first Chamber speech of June
1921, the period from then until September 1922
(just before the Fascist march on Rome) contains
a series of events of great importance in the progi’ess of
Fascism : (r) the fall of Giolitti and his succession in
office by the Reformist Socialist Bonomi, with conse-
quent reaction against the Fascists and the beginning
of a number of Cabinet crises which completely under-
mined effective government, (2) Mussolini’s change
from republicanism to monarchism, (3) the constitu-
tion of the Fascists as a political party, (4) the death
of Benedict XV. and the election of Achille Ratti as
Pope, (5) the final attempt of the Communists and
their complete defeat together with all other subver-
sive groups, (6) the beginning of the straight fight be-
tween the Fascists and the “ demo-liberal ” constitu-
tional parties, and (7) the occupation by the Fascists

IS5

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

of “ morally strategic ” points in Italy. Let us trace
these things.

Shortly after Mussolini’s speech Giolitti tendered
his resignation, not on account of any reasons con-
nected with Mussolini’s criticisms, but as a parliamen-
tary manoeuvre in the established Giolittian manner.
He saw that a Government crisis was brewing and he
dissolved the Chamber and sought a re-shuffie. State
employees, as foreseen, began another agitation which
led to another strike. Disorders broke out afresh over
Italy and the Fascists waged street and highway war-
fare against the Socialists and the Communists. In
the summer of 1921 Giolitti was replaced by Bonomi, a
Moderate Socialist with a reputation as a good
administrator.

I have shown how Giolitti as a matter of policy blew
sometimes hot and sometimes cold on the Fascists.
With Bonomi there was no equivocation. It was
either a case of “ friend or foe.” Fighting grew
fiercer and the Blackshirts, with the rising consent of
the people, grew bolder. They broke strikes and
heads with equal zeal. They fought equally in Rome
and Trieste. They organised a mass attack of six thou-
sand Blackshirts on Socialist-held Ravenna. Making a
similar raid on Sarzana, the Fascists found the road on
the orders of the Government barred by carabinieri.
The Blackshirts were fired on and dispersed, leaving
several dead and wormded. Armed Communists then
set on them from ambush and completed the rout with
atrocities. Eighteen Fascists were killed and thirty-
five seriously wounded. In July at Grosseto fourteen
Communists were killed in a fight with the Fascists.
The Popular Party formed part of the Bonomi Govern-
ment majority.
is 6

TOWARDS REVOLUTION

During the autumn months of 1921 there was a
dramatic episode in the history of Fascism. Discon-
tented with evidence of disunity among the Fascists
MussoUni resigned his leadership. For three months
the Blackshirts were deprived of his command and
then he was hailed back as Duce of a re-united party.
The details of the affair are as follows ;

During July 1921 the leaders of all parties were
satiated with the endless bloodshed which was reduc-
ing the political and social life of the country to ruin.
Mussolini and Bonomi got together and framed the
basis of a truce, and on August 3, 1921, a Pact of
Pacification was solemnly signed under the auspices
of the President of the Chamber. In this document
the Sociahsts, Trade Union and Fascist leaders under-
took to put a stop to acts of violence, Mussolini sign-
ing on behalf of the Fascists.

It only required a few days however to make it
apparent that the political “ shock troops ” and
riotous squads of aU the factions were no longer
tolerant of command. The Communist and Anarchist
elements were still strong enough to manipulate the
policy of the Moderate Socialists, and strife involving
Socialist participation increased rather than abated.
The international influences among the trade unions
in like manner negatived all official control over
strikes and strikers. The Fascists in various provincial
centres refused to lay down their arms in the midst of
the unabated miUe. The Blackshirts of Romagna
(Mussolini’s native province), of Veneto and Reggio
Emilia point-blank declared that they did not sub-
scribe to the terms of the Pacification Pact.

In face of this situation Mussolini declared that
evidently he had made a mistake in believing that the

127

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

Fascists were united and that without tmity there
could be no leadership and no peace. Accordingly on
August 17, 192 1 5 Mussolini sent in his resignation from
the Executive Committee of the Party. On August
19 the Committee and Council refused to accept his
resignation, saying that such a serious decision could
only be dealt with at a National Congress of Fascists.
An agitation for the convening of such a Congress was
immediately set on foot and amid seething Fascist
excitement a Great National Congress of Blackshirts
was opened in the Augusteo Concert Hall in Rome on
November 6, 1921. The meeting lasted two days.
On the opening day Mussolini appeared as a dimission-
ario and took no active part in the discussions. On the
second day a Fascist arose and recalled the beginnings
and growth of the Blackshirts ” from a handful of
resolute men to ten thousand men, from ten thousand
to fifty thousand and from fifty thousand until today
when we are three hundred and ten thousand,” and
then pointing to Mussolini he exclaimed, “ And there
is the man who has made this possible.” Cheering
began and Mussolini was called on to speak. He ex-
plained the reasons for his resignation, saying that
where there was a conflict of views and policy he
could not lead them, but if they undertook to unite
and follow one direction he would return and lead
them through thick and thin. Grandi then stood up
and declared in the name of the Congress that they
all promised to be as “ one solid block of granite.”
Grandi and Mussolini embraced and to the acclam-
ation of the Congress Mussolini thereupon returned to
the Executive fold and became from that moment the
undisputed and sole head of the Fascist movement —
il Duce, the man who must be obeyed.
iz8

TOWARDS REVOLUTION

The Fascists, despite the fact that they had repre-
sentatives in the Chamber, had not constituted them-
selves a formal political party. In order to advance
their campaign at all points both within and out-
side the Chamber they began to move more and
more towards the creation of a definitely inscribed
party. In that tendency there arose in Mussolini’s
mind at this period of the Fascist movement the
necessity of choosing to continue as a republican
movement or of acknowledging the monarchy. His
aim was not to destroy the Italian Constitution but
to create a system of government that would really
govern,

. Against the idea of monarchy Mussolini’s sentiments
had always revolted, but against the House of Savoy
and its reigning head Victor Emmanuel he had no
quarrel whatsoever — indeed he had wartime memories
which linked his admiration and sympathy with his
sovereign. When ill in hospital he had first met the
King, and again later, when he lay so severely wounded
in the hospital of Ronchi, Victor Emmanuel made a
special visit to the bedside of the suffering revolution-
ary Socialist,

The meeting is recorded as having been particularly
impressive and each recognised in the other a man
confronting to the utmost the perils of the war for the
salvation of Italy. There is however only assumption,
only understandable assumption, for saying that the
impressions made on Mussolini in these war years —
when he saw the King untiring in his attendance at
the front, and when he saw the King’s cousin the Duke
of Aosta leading the Third Army which he loved — ^in-
fluenced him in his fateful choice in 1921, To out-
ward view there was no sentiment in Mussolini’s
* IS9

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

decision. He elected for a monarchist party as the
best expedient for the political future of Italy.

In the war waged against both subversive and con-
stitutional parties and factions, Republicanism had
never been declared a fighting issue by the Fascists.
In fact, the sweeping Republican programme of the
Reds had put the theoretical republicanism of Musso-
lini more and more into the background of Fascist
principles ; and Fascist hostility to the demo-liberal
parties was directed not against the monarchical
State but against what the Fascists considered to be
their betrayal of the State, namely their failure to
govern in the name of and for the protection of the
State.

‘Knowing the House of Savoy and its head to be
valiant patriots of united Italy — living symbols indeed
of that unity first achieved under Garibaldi and
Cavour — Mussolini realised their high and important
symbolic place in his dreamed-of post-war Italy with
its Risorgimento programme completed by the inclu-
sion of the new frontier provinces. Surely in such a
greater Italy the Grown of Savoy must be the emblem
of completion, and surely it should prove a great and
unifying ally in the task of national consolidatiorrt

'In a sense it was history repeating itself. Like the
Republican Garibaldi in i86i, Republican Mussolini
in 1921 accepted the dictates of statesmanship and
deviated his course in favour of the Savoy monarchy.
In both cases these two figures of Italian history were
great enough to subordinate their personal ideals to
national emergency. They each had only one standard
of conduct, one touchstone of policy and action, one
question which they asked themselves when faced with
crucial issues — “ What is best for Italy

TOWARDS REVOLUTION

Also, with numbers of adherents and sympathisers
which were growing almost by thousands daily,
Mussolini foresaw that to insist suddenly on the Re-
publican character of his movement would be to break,
perhaps even in provincial hlocs, the cohesion of his
followers, as well as to invite attacks from a fresh
angle.

There is another reason which would doubtless in-
fluence Mussolini in his decision. In the event of the
success of his projected revolutionary coup the main-
tenance of the sovereign power in the hands of the
ruling King would simplify the position from an inter-
national point of view. « With a revolution developed
inside the existing monarchical system, Mussolini was
thereby automatically assured that the de jure quality
of his revolution existed at the same moment as it
became de facto — thus avoiding the necessity and prob-
able compUcations of requiring any change in recogni-
tion of his regime by foreign States,

By becoming monarchical the Fascists also fortified
their position with sympathisers in the Regular Army.
We have seen, for instance, how Mussolini served with
the Bersaglieri of Risorgimento tradition. It is diffi-
cult to imagine this great regiment, with its popular
war-time memories of Sergeant Mussolini, turning
against a monarchical Mussolini. Indeed there is
reason to believe that in the depots of the corps the
Blackshirts found unofficial facilities. The abandon-
ment of a republican programme also restored con-
fidence among the industrialists ; but it is a mistake to
assert, as some do, that they financed the revolutionary
movement. Subsequent events shew that Mussolini,
irrespective of whatsoever aid, did not sacrifice his
independence of action or policy. The masses and

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

strike-weary Labour already were rallying to him.
The adherence also of the industrialists and strike-
smitten Capital therefore marked an all-important
but unprejudicial step towards that eventual co-
operation of Capital and Labour which was the
greatest and most difficult part of the Fascist leader’s
plan. It is also a fact that in the search for a Minis-
terial solution of the parliamentary failure to check
the disintegration of government, the King — rm-
ostentatious but ever alert to his country’s interests —
made contact with Mussolini months before the March
on Rome.

During this phase of Fascism there were certain
negotiations opened between Mussolini and influential
Milanese Liberal representatives, such as Senator
Albertini, owner of the all-powerful Corriere della Sera.
The trend of these conversations was to see if Musso-
lini would consider coalition, and if so, how many
Cabinet seats would satisfy the Fascists. MussoHni’s
demand for eight portfolios was refused. The discus-
sion ended — and Mussolini moved to the organisation
of the March on Rome with the consequent Blackshirt
assumption of fifteen Cabinet posts plus the Premier-
ship.

Mussolini’s views are expressed in a fighting speech
delivered to the populace of Udine on September 20,
1922. The date and the place were chosen to give
added significance to his words — Udine, capital of a
recovered Province ; September 20, anniversary of
the September 20, 1870 capture of Rome by the
Italian national troops of the Risorgimento.

think it is possible to renew the regime in a
profound way without touching the monarchy,” he
said. “ Mazzini himself, Republican and master of
J32

TOWARDS REVOLUTION

Republican doctrines, did not consider these doctrines
incompatible with a monarchical pact for Italian
unity. He submitted. He accepted. It was not his
ideal, but one cannot always realise ideals. We will
therefore leave the institute of monarchy out of our
play, which will have other more obvious and more
formidable goals. We will also leave it aside because
a great part of Italy would look with suspicion on a
transformation of the regime which would go to such
a point. We would perhaps have regional separatism.
At bottom I don’t think that the monarchy has any
interest to put obstacles in the way of what at last
must be called the Fascist Revolution. It is not in its
interests, because if it did it would at once become a
target, and, once a target, it is certain that we would
not be able to spare it, as it would be for us a question
of life and death. Why are we Republicans ? Be-
cause in a certain sense we see a monarchy that is not
sufficiently monarchical.

“ The monarchy should represent the historic con-
tinuity of the nation. ... We must avoid that the
Fascist Revolution puts everything at hazard. We
must not give the impression to the people that every-
thing must tumble and that everything must be rebuilt.
One thing that must be done is clear, however : the
demolition of the whole Socialist-Democratic super-
structure.’,’

The sentiments expressed in the Udine speech were
part of the move towards the transformation of the
fighting Fascist units and their adherents into a regular
political party, with a party creed and programme.
At this time Mussolini wrote in the Popolo d'ltalia a
leading article which he entitled “ Towards the Fu-
ture.” In it he said, “ Should Fascism become a

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

Party ? After long reflection and close examination
of the Italian political situation I have come to
answer in the affirmative. The origin and course of
the Fascist crisis which carries us to this cross-road
creates for us a dilemma : either to make a party or
to make an army. And to my way of thinking the
problem solves itself in these terms : we must consti-
tute a party, but one so solidly bounded and disciplined
that it can, when necessary, change itself into an army
capable of going into violent action, be it in attack or
in defence,”

And again in the Popolo d'ltalia, under the warmer
title of “ Towards a Party ” he writes a few weeks
later voicing the necessity of having a party doctrine.
For this he chose a simple and historic formula —
“ Fascism can and ought to adopt as its body of doc-
trine the Mazzinian phrase, ‘ Thought and Action.’ ”

Working further towards the party idea he again
writes in October 1921 — “ To be a party is a gesture
of coturage. It is a sign of youthfulness and daring ;
an act of faith. It demonstrates that Fascism can
undertake work of a positive nature in order to reach
immediate and meditated ideals ; and this fact alone
will give the lie to all those who maintain that we have
no virtues beyond those of a pugilistic nature. Now is
the time to yoke up the plough and, like the ancients,
drive a dividing furrow around our ‘ Cittd quadratal
That and nothing else is the party. That will signify
the salvation of what is alive and immortal in Fascism
and will prepare it for its task of to-morrow : the
government of the nation.”

Mussolini’s statements foretelling a regime of selec-
tion and self-discipline, his speeches and writings in
favour of monarchy, the Church, and class coUabora-

134

TOWARDS REVOLUTIOJ^

tion, caused a certain amount of alarm, criticism and
division among the Fascists. Many also could not
appreciate his politico-philosophic writings on the
function of the State. But those who ceded from the
movement at this juncture only served to strengthen
its chances and prestige, while the solid body which
approved of the orientation, or rather the evolution,
of the movement redoubled their strength in practical
and moral consolidation. Many, however, still ad-
hered whose ideas went no further than the opportunist
and pugilistic stage.

On November 6, 1921, the Fascists opened the Con-
gress in Rome to which I have already referred. The
members attended as representatives of irregular
scattered groups of Fasci di Combattimnto. They left
as representatives of a regular political unit — 11
Partita Nazionale Fascista. But, as Mussolini told them
in Congress, the party was one which was to add a
moral code to its political code.

In his programme for this Congress and for Fascism
as a Party, Mussolini reveals that the principles
established in Italy today were already established in
his mind. He also reveals how, in the midst of poUticai
contentions and faction fights, his mind was ever
working on conceptions of politico-philosophy as the
springs and aims of all his actions. For instance, in
this programme Mussolini says, “ The nation is not
merely the sum-total of living individuals, nor the
instrument of parties for their own ends ; it is an
organism comprising the unlimited series of genera-
tions of which individuals are merely transient ele-
ments — it is the supreme synthesis of all the material
and non-material values of the race, and the nation
has its legal incarnation in the State.” From these

135

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

premises there issues the eonclusion that the State
includes all, represents all — race, nation and individual
concrete and spiritual.

Having thus defined the State in terms that made
his conception of it appear nothing less than the very
body and breath of Italy, he proceeded to argue how
its supreme mission could only be fulfilled by an execu-
tive parliamentary and technical system devoted to
considering all issues in the light of the State instead
of in the light of political parties which represented
merely competitive interests or theories.

And again he showed what a definite and leading
place foreign affairs held in his thoughts. A concep-
tion of prestige abroad was, it can be seen, always
hyphenated in his mind with his conception of disci-
pline at home. With words of defiance he re-asserted
Italy’s claim to the historic and geographical unity
round Alpine and, specially, Adriatic-Dalmatian fron-
tiers ; and he emphasized the role which Italy could
play as a champion of the Latinity of the Mediter-
ranean.

These references to foreign affairs were merely an
affirmation of policy. What is of more importance at
this point is his affirmation of principles as above de-
scribed in his definition of the State and its functions.
It is only at the milestones of the march of Fascism that
Mussolini pauses in the fray to voice his political
pensiero. But step by step, gradual but always con-
sistent, his idea can be traced from these first far-off
days of 1904 when speculations of social thought first
sent ideas flying among his surprised Socialist com-
rades. We have seen how, through azione which in-
cludes world-war and civil-war, pensiero becomes more
and more clear — notably at the formation of the con-

TOWARDS REVOLUTION

stituent of the Fascio di Combattimento in March 1919,
at the Florence Congress in October 1919, and now a1
the Rome November 1921 Congress, with Fascism at
length a Party.

In 1904 and other pre-war years he was, as I have
already said, testing and discarding all creeds, trying
every byway in his search for direction towards the
perfectioning of Governmental ideals as he felt them.
By 1919 he had found the road, and by the autumn
of 1921 he was on the way for the conquest of power
and the application of his now completed theory of
rule.

^Everything now moved to a coup de main with Rome
— Italian and Imperial — as his inspiration and goah

We have seen how the Communists and Bolshevists
lost their insurgent driving force after the split with
the Socialists in January 1921 and how their activities
in consequence became more desperately violent but
sporadic. ‘ Fascist, Nationalist and Government action,
backed by an ever-rising flood of public opinion, had
gradually driven out the Red terrori Nevertheless
these subversive forces still remained alive and ready
to revive their attempts on the social life of the nation.
During the late summer of 1922, when the Fascists
were strengthening themselves as the National Fascist
Party, the Communists made what was to prove their
last organised effort to recover their lost ground.

In an article entitled " Preludes to the March on
Rome,” written by Mussolini and contributed to the
review Gerarchia, he himself gives an account of these
last efforts of the Reds. “ In August 1922 — that is
two years after the Red occupation of the factories and
only three months before the March on Rome— -Bol-
shevism in Italy had been so litde liquidated that it

^37

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

attempted by means of the notorious ‘ Alliance of
Work ’ to recover its full mastery of the political situa-
tion and perhaps also power. It signifies nothing that
there were also Socialist elements in the ‘ Alliance of
Work.’ The character of that body was anti-Fascist
and Communist, since it was the Communists who
imposed their will. Its object was clear : to break
Fascism with a series of street tactics combined with a
politico-parliamentary manoeuvre. The constitution
of the ‘ Alliance of Work,’ the secret of the names of
its directors, the ubiquity of its centres showed that
the general strike was able, according to circumstances,
to change itself into an insurrection in the real and
full meaning of the word.”

The strike referred to was a general strike organised
by the “ Alliance of Work,” which opened with
lightening rapidity all over Italy in August 1922.
There were the usual violent incidents. After an
initial surprise success for the Reds, the Fascists, now
an army of some 400,000 fighting men, were mobilised.
They took over and ran aU the public services ;
assailed the strikers, their papers, leaders and head-
quarters ; harried out Communists and their Socialist
allies ; and called on the strikers to return to their
work, giving them a time-limit of twenty-four hours.
Before this display of energy and resolution the strike
completely and miserably collapsed. Socialist town
counsellors were driven out and in Milan and Genoa
the Fascists occupied the City Halls.

“ With the defeat of this general strike,” writes
Mussolini, “ Fascismo inscribed one of the finest and
most bloody pages of its history. It was a clearing out
of the last den of its adversaries. It was a demonstra-
tion to Italians that it was possible to substitute the
138

TOWARDS REVOLUTION

Government and at the same time guarantee the con-
tinuity of the life of the nation. From August 1922,
with the definite defeat of the ‘ Alliance of Work/
there remained only two forces on the Italian pohtical
scene ; the demo-liberal Government and the armed
organisation of Fascism.”

Before following the course of the contest between
these two remaining forces I must record an event
which happened earlier in the year — an event which
had no immediate influence whatsoever on Fascism
but one which was in later years destined to be of
immense importance in the history of Fascist Italy. I
refer to the eleetion of Achille Ratti, on February 6,
1922, to the headship of the Roman Gathohc Church
as Pope Pius XI.

As a papal nuncio and bishop) Mgr. Ratti was in
Poland during 1919, when the Bolshevist invasion of
that country took place. He refused to leave his post
in threatened Warsaw when the rest of the Diplomatic
Corps retired to the safety of Posen. And to him falls
the credit of securing the liberation of many prisoners
and hostages held by the Bolshevists. He was there-
fore a man who knew at first hand all that Bolshevism
and Anarchism really meant. In 1921 he was nomin-
ated Archbishop of Milan, He was therefore a man
who knew at first hand what that Milan citizen and
anti-Red firebrand, Benito Mussolini, with his local
newspaper the Popolo d' Italia and his Fascist forces,
was doing to save Italy from a fate such as he had
seen Poland suffer. The Archbishop was also a
patriot : a man too of “ thought and action,” with
clear ideas in his own head, and unusual will-power.
His election as successor to Benedict XV. brought
therefore to the throne of Peter in Rome a Pontiff’

J39

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

presumably predisposed to appreciate the work of
Fascism as far as he saw it. ‘ His independence of
character also created conditions for the settlement of
the Roman Question. In his decisions he has proved
himself to be as untrammelled by the College of Car-
dinals as Mussolini by the Chamber of Deputies « His
accession to power must also have meant a decline of
official Church support for the Popular Party, as it was
composed on demagogic lines which often affiliated
it to the Socialists, whom the Pope in his experience
knew to be the door-openers to Communism. The
subsequent attitude of the Vatican bears out this sup-
position.

Throughout the year 1922 the Government went
from crisis to crisis. Cabinets rising and falling like
cards. Bonomi’s Cabinet was re-shuffled three times
and then collapsed. Facta, a protigi of GioUtti, was
put into power ; but he had no control over his
Ministers, almost every one of whom represented
political, personal, productive and regional interests
inimical one to another. The summer of 1922 saw
more crises for Facta, but he managed to construct
yet another Ministry.

The Fascist handling of the August general strike
above described revealed the presence of an authority
stronger than Facta’s Cabinet. The country was
sick to death of Governmental crises and party dis-
orders and social unrest and general incompetence.
A succession of economic difficulties and scandals
stretching over the whole year undermined public
faith in all political leaders. The budget debit balance
piled up by millions of lire, industry lived from hand
to mouth, commerce was at the mercy of graft, and
affairs like the collapse of the Banca di Sconto, in-
140

TOlVJJiDS REVOLUTION

volving the loss of the savings of millions of Italians,
all affected and depressed the nation.

vin foreign affairs too they knew that things con-
cerning Fiume were being dissipated in words, that
Baros had been ceded to Yugoslavia, and that Italian
interests in the Peace Treaties were being pulled along
at the tail of France and Britain from Conference to
Conference. Mussolini’s hour for a coup was all but
ready. It only remained to make his dispositions
and fix the zero hour for a march on Rome. •

CHAPTER XVI
THE MARCH ON ROME

Mussolini given full Party Powers. Blackshirt Activity in the Alto
Adige. The Position there. And in Naples. “ Quadrumvirate ” Ap-
pointed. Military Dispositions. The Church’s Precaution. Fascist
Diplomatic Mission. Proclamation of Mobilisation. Its Assurances.
Facta orders State of Siege and Arrests. Order Revoked. Contact with
King. Mussolini refuses a Portfolio. Blackshirts move on Rome.
Mussolini offered Premiership. Fascists enter Rome. Mussolini Accepts.
First Audience with King. Speech at Unknown Warrior’s Tomb.
Mussolini becomes an International Figure. Demobilises his Troops.
Calls his First Cabinet Meeting.

M ussolini had always been the leader, in life and
spirit, of the the Fascists ; but in view of the
pending push he was formally given official powers by
the Party Council at a meeting in Rome in September
19Q2. From then on he was not only de facto but also
dejure “ il Duce del Fascismo.^'

I have already spoken of his activities in the northern
regions. His movements there, together with the
Fascist action at Bolzano in the Alto Adige (Southern
Tyrol) and another action in October at Trento, were
directed towards showing Italy that the Fascists were
more capable of governing than the Government. It
might be called a phase of moral strategy.

In Bolzano the Blackshirts occupied the Town Hall
and the schools, ordered the dismissal of Austrian
officials and the disbandment of the local civic guard,
who still wore the uniforms and emblems of the
Austrian army. They opened the Austrian schools as
Italian schools. In short they established Italian

14s

THE MARCH ON ROME

sovereignty over a German-speaking minority. This
minority of Tyrolese highlanders represented one of
the most disciplined and orderly races in Europe ; and
the Fascist action against them was not intended to
be a gesture of tyranny over a conquered people. The
fault lay not with the Tyrolese, but with the Rome
Governments.

As we have seen, promises made after the Armistice
in the form of a “ gentlemen’s agreement” to respect
the local language and institutions, were, in the im-
mediately succeeding period of Italian social chaos,
accepted, thanks mostly to pan- German agitators, as
meaning local language and institutions to the ex-
clusion of Italian language and institutions. Nitti had
led them to believe that he would grant them local
autonomy ; Bonomi had not prevented them boy-
cotting the King’s visit ; Giolitti and Facta left them
to their own devices both politically and economically ;
and the Socialists and Masons through international
channels encouraged them in their defiance of the
Italian Government. The Popular Party also confused
the issue, because, as Catholics, they were not un-
favourable to the continuance of Church arrange-
ments which ignored frontiers. Fascist reassertion in
these war areas roused Italy to a sense of its war-won
rights and power.

From the North Mussolini then switched attention
to the South. On October 24 he convened a great
Congress of Fascists in Naples. Over 35,000 Black-
shirts were present In another speech such as he had
made in Udine he foretold the approaching move to
seize power. But he did so with a certain rhetorical
style intended to keep the Government uncertain as
to his real time-table and intentions.

^43

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

After the Naples speech Mussolini returned to
Milan and to the offices of the Popolo d’ltalia^ which
then became the headquarters of the diplomatic side
of his revolutionary project, — a project already
privately arranged, because at a secret midnight
meeting in the Hotel Vesuvius in Naples on October
22 the decision to march on Rome had been taken
and the first dispositions made. At that meeting were
Mussolini, Balbo, De Bono, Grandi, De Vecchi
and Michele Bianchi, the Party Secretary. Already
Mussolini had formed a “ Quadrumvirate ” for mili-
tary and political action. The members of this
Quadrumvirate of the March on Rome were Balbo,
De Bono, De Vecchi and Bianchi.

At the Hotel Vesuvius meeting it was arranged that the
plan for the conquest of power should be as follows ;

(1) occupation of public offices in the principal cities,

(2) concentration of Fascist troops at Santa Marinella,
50 miles northwest of the city, for the invasion of Rome
at Tivoli 26 miles east, and at Monterotondo 16 miles
up the Tiber from Rome, (3) Operation Headquarters
at Perugia, (4) stronr reserve troops at Foligno, (5) an
ultimatum of dismis^ to the Government, (6) advance
of the three columns into Rome and occupation of the
Ministries at all costs, and (7) Southern Fascists to pro-
vide flank protection for moving columns.

In the event of defeat ; (i) the Blackshirt troops
were to retreat north-east into Umbria, covered by
the Foligno reserves. (2) The constitution of a Fascist
Government in one of the towns of central Italy.

(3) Rapid advance and concentration of the Black-
shirts of Mantua, Cremona, of Emilia and the Rom-
agna. (4) Renewed advance on Rome.

Mobilisation was secretly fixed for October 27, and

144

THE MARCH ON ROME

the Quadrumvirate on October 24 set up their General
Command Headquarters in Perugia. General De Bono,
who had commanded an Army Corps on the Tren-
tino front during the war, took command of the opera-
tions, Balbo took command of the troops in the field.
Bianchi did liaison staflFwork. De Vecchi, as head of
General Staff along with Grandi, took the most delicate
task of all — that of persuading the Government and the
King to invite Mussolini to form a Government.

The Holy See — sensing a fact which had even yet
not seriously penetrated Government headquarters —
namely, that the Fascists were brewing something
serious and sudden, sent a message to Perugia asking
what were the intentions of the Fascists with regard
to the Church. The answer was that orders had
already been given that the churches Were in every
case to be strictly respected. . . »

On October 25 the zone commanders got their final
instructions. On the same day De Vecchi and'
Grandi came to Rome to open their diplomatic mis-
sion. They made contact with the two Liberal leaders
Salandra and Orlando. De Vecchi told them to
advise the King of the patriotic and loyal aims of the
Fascists and he asked Facta to resign the Premiership.

Facta wired to the King, who was at San Rossore in
Tuscany, advising his return to the capital. As to
the question of retiring from office. Facta played for
time. On October 26 Facta had not definitely an-
swered. On October 27 the Fascist “ Proclamation
of Mobilisation ” was launched, It read :

FASCISTS! ITALIANS!

The hour of decisive battle has struck. This time foot
years ago the national Army broke up the enemies’ soprojtte
offensive and paved the way for victory. Today the army

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

of the Blackshirts re-affirms that mutilated victory and, point-
ing desperately to Rome, it re-leads it to the glory of the
Capitol. Today all ranks, principes et triarii, are mobilised.
The martial law of F ascism enters in full vigour. Under the
orders of the Duce the military, political and administrative
powers of the Party Direction are assumed by a secret Quad-
rumvirate of action with a dictatorial mandate.

The Army, reserve and supreme safeguard of the nation,
ought not to take part in the struggle. Fascism renews its
highest admiration of the army of Vittorio Veneto. Neither
does Fascism march against the forces of public order. It
marches against a class of faint-hearts and inefficients which
for four long years has never known how to give a govern-
ment to the nation. The productive middle classes know
that Fascism wishes to impose only order on the nation and
help all the forces that augment its economic expansion and
well-being. The workers, in field and factory and office,
have nothing to fear from Fascist power. Their just rights
will be loyally cared for. With unarmed adversaries we will
be generous : but with others, inexorable.

'Fascism draws the sword to cut the Gordian knots which
bind and paralyse Italian life. We call on God and the
spirit of onr five hundred thousand dead to witness that only
one impulse drives us, that we harbour only one will, that
one passion alone inflames us : — to contribute to the salva-
tion and the greatness of the Country,

FASCISTS OF ALL ITALY !

Maintain like Romans your spirit and your strength. We
must conquer. We will conquer. Long live Italy ! Long
live Fascism ! IL QIJADRUMVIRATO.

On the day that the Proclamation was issued a great
many things happened. The military part of the
programme was carried out all over Italy according
to plan and without resistance. The country was
already with them to a large extent. Provincial cities
were taken over. The three columns for the actual
146

THE MARCH ON ROME

March on Rome moved to their appointed jumping-
off stations ; the reserves, flank troops and the
northern general reserve took up their appointed
locations,

It is estimated that about yo,ooo men were on
parade in Central Italy and Rome areas. In Perugia
the town administration was assumed by the Black-
shirts. At ten in the morning the Headquarters there
intercepted two Home Office telegrams, one ordering
a state of siege and the other ordering “ the immediate
arrest by whatsoever means of all the members of the
secret Cluadrumvirate and assistant leaders.” Three
hours later came another wire revoking the order of
the state of siege.

In Rome the diplomatic mission worked feverishly
on that October 27. The King returned to the
Quirinal. Grand! scored the first victory : after twice
seeing Orlando, Orlando went to Facta and per-
suaded him of the necessity to resign. That night
the Facta Cabinet handed in their portfolios.

The next move — that for the formation of the new
Government — ^lay with the King. Victor Emmanuel
sent for De Vecchi. Grand! and De Vecchi were
received in audience. The first thing that the King
said was : “ I desire that all Italians know that I
signed no decree for a state of siege.” The order had
been issued by Facta before submission of the decree
to the King, who, when he saw it, refused to sign — the
order being then, as we have seen, at once revoked.

The King asked Salandra to form a Ministry with
Fascist participation and that evening De Vecchi and
Grandi telephoned to Mussolini at Milan telling him
that Salandra had offered him a post in the Cabinet,
To this Mussolini replied, “ Refuse participation

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

because I do not wish the Fascist victory to be
mutilated.” Salandra then gave up the charge and
suggested Mussolini as Premier.

With the Blackshirt legions now closing into the
approaches to Rome, affairs got to an impatient stage.
By next morning Mussolini was informed that the
King had invited him to come to Rome to form a
Ministry. On receipt of the official invitation he left
at once for the capital. By this time the advanced
guards were at and within the gates. Mussolini broke
his journey at Santa Marinella to review the moving
column and see it entrain. Amid scenes of great
enthusiasm he continued his fateful journey. On
October 30 Mussolini in black shirt was received by
the King.

In answer to the Royal greeting Mussolini replied :
“ I bring to Your Majesty the Italy of Vittorio Veneto
reconstructed by a new victory.” He then presented
his list of names for the first Mussolini Ministry.

Outside the Quirinal Royal Palace the Blackshirts
were massed, and a demonstration of loyalty was made
when Mussolini left the Palace gates as Prime Minister
of Italy.

All three columns were now in Rome, bivouacked
in the piazzas. The official estimation of the total
strength which entered Rome is a little over 50,000
men. Mussolini’s first speech as Premier was to a
mass muster of these men before the National Monu-
ment erected in memory of the Risorgimento. Form-
ing part of this Monument is the Unknown Warrior’s
Tomb. With that as a background the Duce said :

Italians ! In the record and in the celebration of the great
victory of our arms, the whole nation has refoimd itself and
adjusts its conscience to the hard necessities of the moment.
148

THE MARCH ON ROME

'The Government intends to govern and shall govern. All
its energies will be directed to assuring peace at home and
to augmenting the prestige of the nation abroad. Only
with work, with discipline and with concord will our country
definitely overcome all crises and march towards an epoch
of prosperity and greatness.-

As a first reassuring display of discipline he ordered
the immediate evacuation of his Blackshirt troops from
Rome. Within twenty-four hours they had gone in
good order — a feat which was, incidentally, an extra-
ordinary good bit of staff-work. Over all Italy the
concentrations were demobilised — the general popu-
lace, the forces of public order and the regular soldiers
all rallying in friendship around the returning Fascisti.

It is difficult nowadays to realise that even when
Mussolini on that October day of 1922 became a
national figure — despite the great past which he had
played in events ever since the interventionist pre-
war days — ^neither he, nor his character, nor his his-
tory, nor his appearance, nor his movement was known,
far less understood, outside of Italy. When it became
necessary to telegraph reports of the March on Rome
with descriptions of the new situation to newspapers
abroad there were foreign observers, with an intimate
knowledge of Italian political affairs as seen from
Rome, who found themselves hard put to it to give a
pen-picture of Mussolini or to explain what Fascism
was all about. I cite this as evidence of the apparent
suddenness of the rise of Mussolini’s name abroad. In
Italy, especially in the north, much was known of his
azione, but mighty little of his pensiero. Practically no
Correspondent in Rome had set eyes on the man.
They knew of him as the Duee of the Fascisti — a fight-
ing party who chased Communists in the provinces,

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

worried Deputies in Rome and broke strikes. They
heard the March on Rome called a Fascist Revolu-
tion. And from what they saw of it in the streets of
Rome they thought it a singularly tame revolution —
a sort of walk-over.

The outside world, together with a surprising num-
ber of Italians, did not reahse that the March on
Rome was merely the culminating point of applied
revolutionary action extending, as we have seen, back
to 1919. And there was another thing that thousands
of others even wearing black shirts did not realise —
that the March on Rome was merely a starting-point
of apphed revolutionary thought. To the populace
of Italy Mussolini was just a new leader who had come
to end misrule and to set the national house in order.
That was all they knew ; and after their post-war
agony it was surely enough. He came ; and was
hailed as a saviour.

THE TREE

MUSSOLINI TAKES OVER

(1922—)

" Combattcrc, Combattcrc, Gombattcre.”

Mussolini.

CHAPTER XVII
FIRST SPEECH AS PREMIER

Collaboration Efforts. First Reforms and Changes. Mussolini warns the
Chamber. Home Policy. Key Phrases. He speaks to the Senators on
Liberalism. On " Constitutional Rails." Blackshirt Militia Founded.
Grand Fascist Council Created. Movement Grows in General Popularity.
Liberals lend Support to Fascist Government. Polemical Issues. “ Big
Stick " Arguments. Comparative Calm.

M ussolini did not attempt to exploit his victory by
any immediate construction of a Ministry en-
tirely Fascist ; neither did he attempt any sudden
creation of a purely Fascist State. His first work was
to patch up the broken parliamentary machine, to put
government into motion and to initiate a rettirn to
internal tranquillity and financial stability. When
he took over, the national budget showed a deficit of
seven thousand million lire — a millstone on the neck
of a nation like Italy which has to purchase its raw
material abroad before it can start to manufacture
for home supplies and for export. The administrative
and economic machine creaked at every coupling.

Mussolini decided to try to begin his reforms on the
structure of the existing State. For this purpose — and
to give reassurance at home and abroad — he invited
the collaboration of all the Constitutional parties, and
between Ministers and Under-Secretaries he formed
his first Cabinet of 15 Fascists, 3 Nationalists, 3 liber-
als of tlie Right, 6 Populars and 3 Democrats, he him-
self taking the portfolios of Home Affairs and Foreign
Affairs ad inlerim as well as that of Premier. It has to

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

be noted that this was not a Ministry of Coalition.
No concessions were made to the parties represented
in his Cabinet. That system was dead and gone as
far as Mussolini was concerned. It was a Ministry of
“ collaboration.”

On the day that he formed his Government, Musso-
lini resigned the editorship of the Popolo £ Italia, hand-
ing over his desk to his brother Arnaldo. He then
left Milan and established himself in Rome the Capital.

The first flash of the Mussolini nature was revealed
to the outside world in connection with his handling
of the Italian Ambassadors. Being men of the former
regime, and recognising the revolutionary aspect of
the March on Rome, the Ambassadors at once offered
their resignations from their posts in the foreign capi-
tals of Europe. The resignation of Count Sforza from
the Ambassadorship in France was announced (ac-
cording to Fascist accounts) in the Paris Press before
it had been tendered to the new Government in
Rome. Mussolini, to whom Count Sforza’s foreign
policy, or rather his method of developing Italy’s
foreign policy, was anathema, peremptorily told the
diplomat to withdraw his resignation and to stay at
his post until relieved of it by Governmental com-
mand. The formal act of dismissal came a few days
later. With this and a few other incidents of a similar
nature among some of the Civil Service staff it
became at once patent that someone of an uncom-
promising and masterful nature had not only mounted
the Government saddle but had also taken a firm grip
of the reins. Mussolini chose General Diaz, victor of
Vittorio Veneto, as Minister of War and Admiral
Thaon di Revel, identified with naval victories against
the Austrian Fleet, as Navy Minister. This choice at

154

FIRST SPEECH AS PREMIER

one stroke bound the interest of the fighting forces with
those of the nation and Government and created an
immediate identification of the war-time victory spirit
with the new regime. This feeling was further devel-
oped on November 4, Italian Armistice, or Victory
Day as they call it, when ceremonies and parades were
for the first time since the war held all over Italy with
whole-hearted Government backing and undisturbed
popular acclamation.

Measures were at once passed to ensure the loyal
adherence of the bureaucratic machinery of the State,
and to simplify the country’s fiscal system. Then on
November 16, 1922, Mussolini made his first speech
as Prime Minister. In this he outlined his programme
to the Lower Chamber and to the Senate. The vio-
lence of his opening remarks in the Chamber and the
resolute hammer- blowintimation of his intentions shook
up Parliament and made the country take notice.

He told the Deputies that they were in the Chamber
that day thanks to his clemency. “ Revolution has
its rights,” he said, “ and I am here to defend and
develop the revolution of the Blackshirts. I refused to
make an outright conquest as I could have done. I
put a limit to my actions. With my three hundred
thousand armed men, prepared to dare everything
and ready, almost mystically, to obey my orders, I
could have punished those who have defamed and
bespattered Fascism. I mighthave made thisbieakhall
into a bivouac for my platoons. I might have closed
down Parliament altogether and created a Govern-
ment of Fascists alone. I could have done that, but
such — at least for the present — has not been my wish.”

Before his astonished listeners had recovered from
this attack on their weakness Mussolini told them that

^35

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

he had formed a mixed Government not with the idea
of having a parliamentary majority — “ today I can
perfectly well do without that ” — ^but in order “ to
gather together in aid of a gasping people all those
who, with minds above parties, are desirous of saving
the nation.”

Mussolini then turned to policy and programme ;
and, just as he did when he made his maiden speech
as a Deputy, he began by a survey of foreign affairs,
despite the national concentration of attention on the
internal matters of the moment following his coup.
For convenience’ sake I will consign the foreign-policy
section of his speech to a subsequent chapter devoted
to the foreign affairs and international repercussions
of the new regime.

'For home policy he reiterated the three words ;
economy, work and discipline^ The following are
key-phrases from his speech which reveal the whole
aim and intention of Mussolini :

By work is meant that of the productive middle and work-
ing classes of town and country. No privileges to the former
and no privileges to the latter ; but the protection of all
interests that harmonise with those of production and of the
nation.

Episodes of violence are sporadic and peripheric : never-
theless they must cease.

The citizens no matter to whatsoever party they may
belong may move about freely : religious cults will be re-
spected, particular regard being paid to the prevailing one,
which is Catholicism : statutory liberties will not be injured :
respect for the law will be exacted at all costs.

The State is strong and will demonstrate its strength agmnst
everybody, even in the event of possible Fascist illegality.

The State does not intend to abdicate before anyone
whomsoever.

FIRST SPEECH AS PREMIER

Whoever rises against the State will be punished.

It must not be forgotten that beyond the minorities en-
gaged in militant politics there are also forty millions splendid
Italians who work, reproduce their species and perpetuate
the deep strata of the race, and who ask, and have the right,
not to be thrown into chronic disorder, sure prelude to
general ruin.

As sermons are evidently not sufficient, the State will pro-
vide armed forces to protect it. The Fascist State will
perhaps constitute a single police force, perfectly equipped,
of great mobility and of high moral spirit. The army and
the navy, no longer influenced by changes of parliamentary
policy and reorganised, will represent the supreme reserve
of the nation at home and abroad.

I do not wish, as long as it will be possible to avoid it, to
govern against the House ; but the House must realise its
particular position, which renders it liable to be dissolved
within two days or two years.

We ask for full powers because we wish to assume full
responsibility.

Without fbU powers you know that it would not be possible
to economise even one lira.

But we do not intend to rule out the possibility of willing
collaboration, which we will cordially accept. All of us have
a religious sense of our difficult task.

The country encourages us and awaits. We shall give it
not further words but facts.

We are taking a formal and solemn pledge to balance the
Budget — and we will balance it.

We wish to follow a foreign policy of peace, although at the
same time a policy of dignity and firmness, — and we will do it.

We have undertaken to give order to the nation, — and we
will give it.

In peroration Mussolini made an appeal to the
House and nation by saying : “ Let us work with a
pure heart and an active mind towards ensuring the
prosperity and greatness of the country,” and ended,

*57

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

“ Thus may God help me to bring my arduous labours
to a victorious end.*’

On a vote of confidence in the Chamber the Musso-
lini Ministry was given 306 votes against 116 and 7
abstentions.

On November 17 he carried his arguments to the
Senate. It will be recalled that Senator Albertini of
the Corriere della Sera had made overtures to Mussolini,
before the March on Rome, for a Liberal-Fascist
Coalition Government. In course of a debate on this
November 17 in the Senate, Senator Albertini in a
powerful speech recalled the glories of Liberalism and
Italy’s indebtedness to Liberal doctrines — all as a
warning to the Fascists not to upset a system on which
the Constitution of Italy was based.

In reply Mussolini said : “ I owe a special answer
to the Senator. I admire his firm faith in pure
Liberalism ; but allow me to remind him that Liberal-
ism is the child of two revolutions : permit me to recall
that Constitutionalism in England, Liberalism in
France — ^in fact aU the complex of ideas and doctrines
which take the name of Liberalism and form among
them the Nineteenth Century — issue from a fierce
revolutionary torment of peoples, and that without
that fierce revolutionary torment Senator Albertini
woxild not today be able to table his eulogy of pure
Liberalism.”

Mussolini then asked the Senate how would it be
possible to get out of the internal crisis “ which every
day becomes more agonising and preoccupying.”
A Ministry of transition was no longer able to resolve
the problem of a nation divided against itself. He
then said ; “ After long meditation, I concluded that
only a surgical operation could mzike the two States
J5S

FIRST SPEECH AS PREMIER

into one State and so save the fortunes of the nation.”
Reverting to his wish to end violence, and giving
proof of his desire that his Revolution avoid bloodshed,
he told the Senators ; “ I have not gone beyond certain
limits. I am not in the least intoxicated with victory.
I have not abused that victory. What was to have
prevented me from closing Parliament and declaring
a dictatorship? Who could have resisted a party
which has not only 300,000 inscribed names but
300,000 rifles ? No one ! ”

He then somewhat reassured the uneasy Senators
by saying : “I have at once put the Fascist movement
on the rail-tracks of the Constitution. I have made
a Ministry of men from all parties in the Chamber, . . .
but I look to technical values. Political etiquette does
not interest me.” Defining, on this occasion, his
Ministry as a “ coalition,” Mussolini concluded by
calling on “ God and the People — the binomial of
Mazzini ” to aid him in accomplishing “ the Third
Renaissance ” of Italy.

A week later the Chamber with a vote of 275 against
90 approved a revolutionary measure conferring “ full
powers ” on Mussolini.

The Government thereafter settled down to carry
out its plan of work — reorganising finances ; reviving
industrial and agricultural production so long hin-
dered by strikes ; reforming the bureaucracy, national
and provincial ; trying to stop the bloody clashes
which ever and again broke out between isolated bands
of Fascists and Socialists. To discipline and control
the innumerable decentralised bands of armed and
elated Fascist squadristi they were in January 1923 en-
rolled in a formally constituted body known as
Fascist Volunteer Militia for the Defence of the State.

159

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

This became a Government recognised internal army
whose primary allegiance was to Mussolini.

This was followed by the creation of the Grand
Fascist Council — a consultative and advisory body
under Mussolini and the Quadrumvirate of the March
on Rome. It ranked — and still ranks — superior to
Parliament. What it proposes today, Parliament does
tomorrow.

The ex-servicemen and war-wounded associations
were granted juridical recognition as public institu-
tions with special rights, and the “ Red Guards ” of
Nitti were disbanded. Propaganda was begun for
the full development of Fascist syndical trade unions.
In an atmosphere of relative calm and hope such as
the country had not enjoyed during its whole post-war
experience the Italian people rallied more and more
to Mussolini and his Fascists. The minority Opposi-
tion in the Chamber, Senate and Press did not cease
its criticism of the new order, but public opinion over-
whelmed them. Many of the Liberals of the Right
and Centre cast in their votes and support in favour
of the Fascists and very many of the intellectual classes
either actually joined the Fascist movement or else
adhered to the rapidly growing army of flank sup-
porters — ^the Jiancheggiatori.

vAs the application of his programme moved from
social and labour to industrial and financial problems
each group thought themselves either menaced or
favoured in turn, and so one heard of Mussolini, now
as ” an agent of the capitalist classes,” now as “ an ill-
disguised Socialist.” But in his speeches, in the Popolo
cP Italia and in his action he insisted on the impartiality
of his projects. The welfare of the nation was his only
professed criterion, and collaboration his means.'

160

FIRST SPEECH AS PREMIER

The insistence of the Fascist trade unions, conceived
on a collaborative employer and employee basis, in
competition with the old unions ; a Governmental
campaign against the Freemasons ; and a project of
electoral reform opened the doors for polemical dis-
cussions and conflicts during the spring and summer
of 1923. But a tour with carefully arranged speeches
of local colour carried out by Mussolini in all parts of
Italy, including the South and Sardinia, quickly re-
stored popular enthusiasm, despite many incidents
of Fascist aggression against their opponents in the
provinces. Those who remained faithful to their
theories of democratic rule were silenced by the
general reaction of public opinion in favour of order.
Those who refused to be silent or attempted to thwart
the work of the Government were cudgelled or other-
wise tortured by being forcibly fed with castor-oil.
Other repressive measures directed against opponents
and critics were begun. The freedom of the Opposi-
tion Press in its attacks against the regime was cur-
tailed : but so far the real Fascist versus anti-Fascist
campaigns had not started.

The more the Communists and Socialists were
silenced the more the Centre Democratic parties re-
asserted their activities. As we have seen, the Fascists
fought the Reds with revolver and with knife : the
democratic critics were confronted with “ big stick ”
arguments. i The epoch of wholesale and chronic
strikes with their attendant international disorders and
social upheaval was too recent in the pubUc mind for
any popular resistance to be made against the methods
of the new masters. For Italian national life 1922-
1923 encompassed a period of comparative internal
tranquillity.

t6i

CHAPTER XVIII

A NEW TONE IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Key-Points from First Speech, Treaties, Debts. A Word to Europe.
A Warning to Turkey. Entente Relations put to Test. Policy''' Nothing
for Nothing." Uncertainty abroad. Nationalist Claims. Mussolini in
London. King George and Qjieen Mary in Rome. Conciliative Step with
Tugoslavia, Trade Treaty Policy. Deep but Unruffled Waters. The
First Disturbance,

I N that opening address which Mussolini delivered
to Parliament on November i 6 j ig22, he changed
Italian foreign policy from negative drift to positive
drive. If the old party leaders were nonplussed by
his downright and outright attitude towards home
affairs, the chancelleries of Europe were no less non-
plussed by his straight talk on foreign matters. It
was something quite new to hear Italy talk in this
way : here was a tone which did not suffer patronage :
here instead was a surprising talk of rights with asser-
tions for their furtherance. Let us follow the same
course with this foreign affairs section of the speech,
citing its key-phrases in Mussolini’s own words.

The fundamental orientations of our foreign policy are as
follows ; peace treaties, good or bad as they may be, when
once signed and ratified are to be executed. But treaties are
not eternal ; they arc not irreparable. They are chapters
in history, not an epilogue of history. To execute them
means to test them. If in the course of execution the
absurdity of treaties becomes evident, this may constitute a
new fact which opens out the possibility of subsequent
examination.

j 62

A NEW TONE IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Trade treaties between two Powers are more useful for the
purposes of European economic reconstruction than com-
plicated and confused plenary conferences, whose woeful
history everyone knows.

We intend to follow a policy of dignity with national
utility.

We cannot afford the luxury of a policy of insensate
altruism or of complete surrender to the designs of others.
Do ut des.

The Italy of today counts, and absolutely must count.

My formula is simple — nothing for nothing.

For many reasons of an economic, political and moral
character, (Italy does not intend to abandon her war Allies ;
but Italy must subject herself, as also her Allies, to a cour-
ageous and severe examination of conscience,— an examina-
tion which has not been faced from the Armistice until now.

Rome stands in the same line with Paris and London.

Does an Entente still exist in the substantial sense of the
term ? What is the position of this Entente vis d vis Germany,
Russia and the possibility of a Russo-German alliance ?

What is the position of Italy in the Entente, — of Italy
which has lost, — not alone through weakness on the part of
her government, — strong positions in the Adriatic and the
Mediterranean, rvhile some of her fundamental rights are
being brought back into discussion ; of Italy which has had
neither colonies nor raw materials and is literally crushed
under the weight of debts contracted in order to achieve the
common victory ?

In interviews which I shall have with the Prime Ministers
of France and Great Britain I propose to face, wth all clear-
ness and in all its complexity, the problem of the Entente
and the consequent problem of the place of Italy within the
Entente.

The hypothesis mil arise out of this examination : Italy will
either become really a homogeneous block with her Allies, with equal
rights and equal duties or Italy, her hour having sounded for rt-
stoning her liberty of action, will arrange loyally the protection of
her interests by means of another polity. I trust that the first
eoentmlity mil materialise. g

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

A foreign policy like ours — a policy of national utility, of
respect for treaties, and of just clarification of the place of
Italy in the Entente — cannot be labelled an adventurous or
imperialistic policy in the ordinary sense of the word.

We wish to follow a policy of peace ; but not, however,
of suicide.

Italy will keep her pledges of assistance to Austria and will
not neglect to undertake action of an economic nature also
vis d vis Hungary and Bulgaria.

When Turkey has had that which is due to her she must
not claim more. At a given moment it will be necessary to
say to Turkey : “ Up to here but not beyond ! At no cost.”

Italy considers that the hour has now arrived for consider-
ing in their present reality our relations with Russia, pre-
scinding from its internal conditions, in which, in our
capacity as a Government, we do not wish to interfere, — in
the same way that will not allow foreign intervention in our
affairs. We are therefore ready to examine the possibilities
of a definitive solution.

As to the post-war economic-financial problem, Italy will
maintain that debts and reparations form an indivisible
binomial.

Despite its declarations in favour of peace the speech,
at one stroke, made Italy an unknown quantity in
the concert of Europe. In it Mussolini asserted liberty
of action within the Entente^ and if that were not con-
ceded on terms of equality, then he threatened to
resume liberty of action outside the Entente. That
move put Italy in play between the ex- Allies and the
ex-Central Powers. It was Mussolini’s way of re-
minding France and Britain of the unredeemed clauses
of the 1915 Secret Treaty of London.

Instead of haggling for an Adriatic bargain he put
the whole issue of his future relations with Paris and
London to the test. (^It was the first time that Italy had
really turned on her war-time Allies and demanded

A NEW TONE IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS

' that they take notice of her. Complacency was a little
disturbed.

Mussolini’s dictatorial policy for Turkey sent a-
momentary thrill of uncertainty through the Govern-
ments of those countries which for the first time began
to fear the possible penetration of Italy into Near East
aflfairs.

For the first time, also, the Italian Government,
through this speech, publicly and officially contributed
principles of policy for the general reconstruction of
European and world affairs ; qualified revision of
peace treaties ; and the interdependability of repara-
tions and war debts.

Apart from Mussolini’s defiant phrases there was
another factor which added to foreign disquietude.
It was patent that he had taken the Nationalist Party
and its affiliated associations to his bosom ; and it
jwas accordingly feared that Italy was about to begin
I a dictatorial application of that Party’s foreign policy.
C The Nationalists, as we have seen, had a reactionary
outlook on foreign affairs. To them the Mediterranean
was Mare Nostrum^ “ Our Sea .” Nice, Savoy, Corsica,
Malta, Tunis and even Egypt were places which, ac-
cording to them, had been purloined from Italian
sovereignty and ought to be restored. They insisted
on the Latinity of the northern Alps. They invoked
the old Roman place-names of the frontier posts ; and
odd remnants of Roman dialects preserved in the
remoter valleys were unearthed as battlecries against
pan-German claims. To them the Adriatic was an
Italian lake, and their kindred institutions like the
Dante Alighieri Society quoted the poet to point their
claims to Dalmatian shores — claims which were aug-
mented by the architectural evidences of the culture

163

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

left by Venetian conquests. The sculptured seals of
the Lion of St, Mark on tovms from Fiume to Spalato
were not to them mere archaeological relics hut
challenges to reconquest, 3*

These anxieties, and the first shock which several
aspects of his Chamber speech on foreign affairs had
aroused abroad, died down however to some extent
in face of the pacific and constructive steps which
marked Italy’s foreign contacts during the first twelve
months of Mussolini’s rule.

Trade agreements were drawn up with Switzerland,
with the Baltic States, with Canada and with South
America. The way was prepared for economic colla-
boration. Ties with the Entente in fact were strength-
ened by the Premier’s attendance at an Allied Confer-
ence at Lausanne and by his visit to London in Dec-
ember igaa, when he conferred with Bonar Law,
Poincard and Theunis on the debts and reparations
questions, tabling his thesis that they formed one and
not two separate questions. Anglo-Italian friendship
was reconfumed in May 1923 by the Royal Visit
to Italy of King George and Queen Mary.

Fears that Mussolini, in view of the stiU unresolved
Fiume and Adriatic questions, was nurturing hostile
intentions against Yugoslavia, were quietened by a
conciliative step taken by the Premier almost as soon
as he assumed office. Recognising that the Fiume
affair must be settled somehow, he decided to make
the best of the Treaty of Rapa llo ; and the Conventions
of Santa Margherita formecT the basis of agreement
with Belgrade. Accordingly, in February 1923 terms
were concluded whereby the Italians evacuated the
Sussak sector of Fiume but remained in what was now,
according to the agreement, the “ Free State ” of
166

A KEW TOm IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Fiume. This included the Delta and Porto Baros,
which Count Sforza had conceded to Yugoslavia,
They also agreed to withdraw from all other points of
the Dalmatian seaboard except Zara.

This arrangement, however, was unsatisfactory for
everyone — Italy, Yugoslavia and most of all for the
” Free State ” itself. But it afforded the resemblance
of relief to the Adriatic tension. The economic im-
possibility of Fiume’s existence as a corptis separatum was
left out of count for the time being.

Developing his policy of b ilateral commerci al
t reaties , Mussolini continued during this 1922-1923
period to sign trade agreements with France, Austria,
Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Spain, His
Government approved the Washington Conference
for naval reduction. In short, foreign opinion became
reassured with the peaceful and constructive methods
being followed by this revolutionary and outspoken
leader of a new Italy.

So far no question had been raised by any foreign
Power which could put Mussolini’s principles to a
ciucial test. (All the do ut des business was on a basis of
reciprocal respect. ' And Mussolini at this phase of his
policy himself raised no vital issue to challenge his
neighbours.

Abroad, as at home, he was, in fact, quietly building
up the prestige of his Government and country, mak-
ing good the losses of the past ten years, and strength-
ening Italy for whatsoever eventualities might befall.

That was the position until August 1923, wljen the
relative tranquillity of Mussolini’s Government was
rudely shaken into violent action. And this first shock
was in foreign affairs, an Albanian and Corfu incident
with the Greeks.

16?

CHAPTER XIX
GUNS AT CORFU

Italian Mission murdered in Albania. Mussolini holds Greece Responsible.
Ultimatum to Athens. Corfu Bombarded. Refugees Hit. World and
Geneva Reaction. Greece Accepts Italy's Terms. The Fiume Crisu.

A 'ft Italian topographical military mission was,
during August 1923, carrying out a delicate task
to which it had been entrusted by the Peace Confer-
ence of Ambassadors, namely, a local survey of land
for a demarcation of the Greco-Albanian frontier.
The Greeks were anxious that any deviation of the
frontier should not compromise their complete mas-
tery of the Corfu straits ; and the hostility of the
Greek population began to manifest itself against the
mission as they saw it working its way south into
the zone which compromised their interests. That
the work of the mission was merely to gather data
and make a topographical report did not lessen the
animosity of the Epirite natives, an animosity which
also had expression in the Greek Press.

‘On August 27, a group of men reported by eye-
witnesses to be dressed in Greek uniforms, but be-
lieved to be bandits, ambushed the Italians in then-
car near Yanina. The entire mission, consisting of
a general, a major of the medical service, a lieutenant,
a soldier chaffeur — all Italians — ^and an Albanian
interpreter, were massacred in cold bloodi
‘News of this reached Rome on August 28. Musso-
lini’s measures were immediate and energetic* On
168

GUNS AT CORFU

the same night the Italian fleet at Taranto was mobil-
ised and the next day his Government presented
Athens with a peremptory Note asserting the responsi-
bihty of the Greek Government in that it did not
afford adequate protection to a mission which was
operating in conjunction with the Greek authorities,
and that the Greek Government had not checked an
inflammatory Press. The Note then demanded the
fullest explanations and most solemn public apologies,
an immediate and severe enquiry into the affair, a
ceremony of expiation in Athens Cathedral with
specific honours to the Italian flag, the arrest and exe-
cution of the murderers and an indemnity of fifty
million lire.

'The Note was of course an ultimatum — ^it gave the
Greeks twenty-four hours to accept the terms — and it
came as a surprise packet for those who looked on the
new-born League of Nations as the arbiter of peace.
The cry of horror that the murders had aroused was
nothing to the cry of horror that was raised when
Mussolini decided that Italy should deal with this
matter by herself and the terms of the ultimatum
became known.'

■ The Greek Government questioned its responsibility
for the massacre, refused the capital punishment
clause and offered other reparations, declaring that if
these terms were unacceptable it was prepared to
submit the affair to Geneva, Italy’s answer on the
expiration of the twenty-four hours was the bombard-
ment of Corfu. .

On August 31 an Italian squadron appeared off the
island. The intention to occupy Corfu was announced
and as the Greek fliag was not lowered in surrendCT
the battleships opened fire. Some of the shots hit the

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

brt in which, unknown to the Italians, there was a
arge concentration of Near-East refugees from Turk-
sh territory. Accounts of the casualties among these
mfortunate wretches vary, but the most authoritative
ecord puts the numbers at 20 killed, including 16
children, and 80 wounded. Italian marines thereafter
brmaUy “ occupied ” the island.

Greece iftimediately appealed to the League of
Mations. World distrust of Mussolini’s political action
ivas excited and angered by the news of the casualties
among the refugees.

^ Liberals of other countries who had watched the
Fascist experiment in Italy with grave misgivings
found in this Corfu incident the justification of all their
fears. It was Liberalism which confronted Italy at
Geneva. The Greek protest was accepted by Lord
Robert Cecil and Geneva’s attitude was seconded by
Lord Gurzon. The question of the Italian Mission
brutally murdered while carrying out the mandate
of the Conference of Ambassadors was by this time
almost completely lost sight of. It was Italy not
Greece that was on trial. While wilUng that the inci-
dent should be examined by the Conference of Am-
bassadors whose orders the mission had been carrying
out, Mussolini instructed Sedandra to tell Geneva that
if it decided to intervene then Italy would forthwith
leave the League.,

,This threat put a brake on the gathering impetus
of League action against Italy, but it had quite an-
other effect on the world’s Press. With the bombard-
ment of Corfu and the defiance of the League as
starting-points, newspapers the world over opened
an alarmist campaign in which every side and
phase of Fascism was severely criticised.. Encour-
170

GUNS AT CORFU

aged by this apparent rise of anti-Italian or anti-
Fascist feeling, Belgrade joined Athens in lodging
protests at Geneva. Yugoslavia opened the Fiume
question and pointed to the dangers of a repetition
of the Italian bombardment on the Dalmatian towns
of the Adriatic.

The Conference of the Ambassadors stood outside
the Geneva storm and repeated the Italian terms to
Greece. Athens at length consented to carry out
Italy’s demands. Immediately after their execution,
Corfu was evacuated — and the League of Nations’
furore died down. Having duly received the 50 million
lire indemnity, the Italian Government handed it
back for distribution among the Armenian and other
refugees of Asia Minor. Attention now swung round
to the Italo-Yugoslav position and many people were
convinced that a new war was imminent.

The population of Fiume, badly governed, without
finances or trade, was almost in a state of starvation.
The corpus separatum was reduced to skin and bone.
Complete economic emaciation was staved off by the
appointment of a Governor with funds to revive at
least the passive life of the ill-starred commimity.
From being the be-all and the end-all of Italian foreign
policy, Fiume had become a thorn in Italy’s flank.
On account of the essential part it had played in the
post-war assertion of Italian patriotism and in the
development of the Fascist idea, and on account of
the part that d’Annunzio had played in its bloody
acquisition for Italy, the slogan of “ Italianity ” had to
be kept up, even when the place had sunk to a mori-
bund and superfluous port. Fiume had been one of the
most spectacular ladders up which the Fascists had
climbed to power. It would not do to kick it down

lyi

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

now, even for Fiume’s own good. Blackshirt parades
still waved flags in its streets and by its empty docks.
At the end of 1923 Mussolini opened new negotiations
with Yugoslavia for the final settlement of Flume’s
future.

1J2

CHAPTER XX

ACTIONS AND COUNTER-ACTIONS

Unrest Inside the Party and Without. Mussolini's Round-up. “ Ille-
gality ” Accusations. Italian Masons. Freemasonry declared “ in-
compatible " with Fascism. Papular's Trade Unions ousted. Demands
to Disband Fascist Militia. " Pformalisation." Fiume settled. General
Election. Opposition Disintegration, Fascist Victory. Opposition In-
creases. Amendola and Matteotti.

T he flood-gates of criticism which the Corfu and
the Fiume questions had opened at Geneva and
elsewhere abroad gave an appearance of anti-Fascist
solidarity among Liberals and Democrats the world
over. The same elements in Italy found encourage-
ment in this to show more openly their opposition
to the Fascist regime.

Those of the right, including the old leaders, Salan-
dra, Orlando and Giolitti, remained as flanking sup-
porters of the Mussolini reformation ; but many from
the Centre — influenced by the arguments against
Fascism, or anticipating its collapse, or alone through
loyalty to Liberal principles — began a drifl to the Left,
where they joined the forces of the Popular and
Socialist parties which were openly opposed to Musso-
lini. Unruly groups and individuals among the
Fascists — time-servers, bullies and opportunists— who
had worked their way into posts of Government admin-
istrative and Party control in Rome and in the pro-
vinces, also helped to undermine the first popularity
of the Fascist movement.

Mussolini was only too aware of these undesirable

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

followers, and efforts were made to purge the party.
In this general unrest the Communists once more
lifted their heads. They were no longer able to have
any mass influence on the people, but they had old
scores to pay off — and they paid them off with am-
bushes and murders. Mussolini could evidently not
yet afford to demobilise the fighting spirit of his
squadristi or Militia, because the subversive forces were
all still well armed.

In a speech to the Senate on June 8, igcsg, Mussolini
reported that during March and April of that year a
round-up of “ the so-called subversive elements ” had
been carried out together with the seizure of their
munitions. He announced that in that period they
had sequestrated 29,257 army pattern rifles ; 1048
revolvers and automatics ; 7288 daggers and 249
varied arms; 1,110,000 rifle cartridges; 82,000
revolver cartridges ; 1086 bombs, petards and infernal
machines ; 29 cases of dynamite ; 2,655 shot-guns,
2444 sporting- type short-guns; and 1089 knives with
dagger handles.

The inevitable armed Blackshirt reaction to armed
aggression built up a situation in which Italians
were either Fascists or anti-Fascists. The question of
the “ illegality ” of the raids carried out by the squad-
risH under the aegis of the Government raised consti-
tutional issues which inflamed the Liberal theorists,
but did not move Mussolini from his double task of
suppressing disorders and trying to keep his own
followers from contributing to these disorders. He
judged from the history of Italy and from his know-
ledge of the present situation that any concessions
to the old demagogic principles of democratic rule
must lead to a fresh influx of the extremist Left

ACTIONS AND COUNTER- ACTIONS

with repetition of the old disasters of strikes and social
troubles.

In his task of clarifying the attachment of his own
Blackshirts and of many who were not actually of the
Party, Mussolini in 1923 and in 1924 openly declared
war against the Freemasons. On February 12, 1923,
the Grand Fascist Council decided “ that in view of
recent political events and the attitude and decisions
of Freemasony, which justify the belief that Free-
masonry follows a programme and adopts methods in
contrast with those inspiring all the activity of Fascism,
the Grand Fascist Council invites all Fascists who are
Masons to choose between one or the other and to
belong either to the National Fascist Party or to Free-
masonry, since there is only one discipline — that of
Fascism, and only one obedience — that of absolute
loyal and daily obedience to the head and the leader
of Fascism.”

International Freemason reaction hastened the con-
clusion of Mussolini’s measures. In August 1924 the
Fascist Council resolved that it was “ incompatible
for any Fascist to belong to any sect or secret society,
and especially to Freemasonry, whether of the Gius-
tiniani Palace or of Piazza del Gesii.” An internal
schism had divided Italian Masons into two groups
popularly known by the name of the buildings they
occupied in the Giustiniani Palace and the Piazza del
Gesh. The Giustiniani Masons had been attacking
latter-day Fascism while the Piazza del Gcsii Masons
had been striving to display loyalty. Both claimed to
have contributed to the March on Rome and Masonry
had old ties with Italian nationalism dating to Ris-
orgimento times ; • but Mussolini considered that
Masonry, as a secret international body, had not only

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

given evidence of influences, tendencies and actions
inimical to Fascist absolutism, but that its hour had
struck as a vehicle of patriotic service. It was a move,
however, that won him favour in the eyes of the
Vatican* To say that it was done for that purpose
is to ignore Mussolini’s old and known hostility to the
Masons, already rampant, as we have seen, in his pre-
war Socialist days.

Tf his anti-Masonic measures won the approval of
the Vatican at this juncture, his Syndicalist trade
union progress got him the increasing enmity of the
Clericals as far as these were represented by Don
Sturzo and the Popular Party. The so-called “ Chris-
tian ” Trade Unions were the apple of Don Sturzo’s
eye and liis strongest weapon of power among the
masses. The gradual penetration of the Fascist
Unions, backed up by laws and physical persuasion,
rapidly ousted Church influence — and again added
to those working against the new regime.

These events at home and abroad were exaggerated
in Press polemics, Fascist and otherwise. The air was
foul with the mud and flying garbage of newspaper
diatribes. The grossest insults, the vilest accusations,
scandal-mongering and incentives to violence filled
column after column of a Press only controlled, on
every side, by fear of raids and thrashings.

Through all this Mussolini ploughed his way with
a steady programme of Fascist reforms. Confident in
the knowledge that he carried the country with him,
and impatient with the drag which his effort at party
co-operation was imposing on his progress, he decided
to put the whole issue to the nation. In the Spring of
ip24 he accordingly dissolved the Chamber and
ordered a general election.
lyS

ACTIOM AND COUNTER-ACTIONS

The decks were cleared for his appeal to the ballot
box, so that the campaign was fought out on the ques-
tion of “ normalisation.” The Opposition and anti-
Fascist forces wanted the Blackshirt Militia abolished
and the old parliamentary system restored in its
entirety. Mussolini on the other hand intended to
demonstrate that Fascism, with the Blackshirt Militia
as the integral expression of its character and the
guarantee of its strength, had a normalisation of its
own to give to Italy — the normalisation of unhindered
business government.

The question of Fiume which had for so many years
confused and complicated Italian affairs, home and
foreign, had at length been settled and so did not add
to the difficulties of the election. The Fiume affair
was arranged at the beginning of 1924 by Italy hand-
ing back Porto Baros and the Delta to Yugoslavia. In
return for Italian recognition of full Yugoslav sovereign
rights over these sectors and Sussak, Yugoslavia recog-
nised full Italian sovereign rights over Fiume. And
thus the work of d’Annunzio was completed. In
recognition of this the poet was created Prince of
Monte Nevoso, the mountain which marks the limits
of Italy’s frontier at that part. On March 16, 1924,
Fiume, in presence of the King of Italy, celebrated its
annexation to the Kingdom of Italy. And that was
that for better or for worse. The Convention for
Fiume formed part of the Treaty of Friendship signed
at Rome on January 27, 1924, by Mussolini and
Ninchich.

jPolling day for the general election in Italy was fixed
for April 6 and the electoral campaign was developed
with such bitterness and strife, with such fights and
casualties, that it sometimes looked as if Mussolini
w iyj

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

was beginning his Revolution all over again. The
exigencies of the contest revived the combative spirit
of the squadristi and additions were made to their
ranks which added more to the strength than to the
discipline and credit of the Militia.

It is instructive to note that even in 1924 the fatal
blight of political divisionism still persisted among the
democratic elements of Italy. Apart from the Fas-
cists, no.\fewer than twenty-three parties or groups
came forward with lists. The names and programmes
of these parties revealed that the old regional interests
of which I have written in the chapters dealing with
pre-war parliamentarianism sprang up again as soon
as the Communist menace had died down — ^parties
which were the affirmation of parochialism and of
suicidal political hair-splitting ; groups which were
the negation of unity and, in their multiplicity, the
self-willed negation of the very democracy they pro-
fessed to worship. In fact several of the parties had
so little politico-philosophical basis at aU that they were
named after their provincial leaders.

It is enough to read the titles of these parties to
understand how democracy collapsed before the
cohorts of the Fascists rmder one directing mind.
The list of parties for the 1924 suffrage included the
' following : the Pellegrino Labour Group ; the South
Italian Liberals ; the Unitarian Socialists ; the Sec-
ond National List ; the Popular Party ; the Liberal
Flankers ; the Social Democratic Party ; the South
Italian Constitutional Opposition Party ; the Graz-
iano List ; the Republican Party ; the Italian High-
land Constitutional Opposition j the Native German
and Slav List (Allogeni) ; the Independent Demo-
crats ; the Dissident Fascist Group ; the Peasants’
i?8

ACTIONS AND COUNTER-ACTIONS

Party ; the de Beilis List ; the Sardinian Party of
Action ; the Liberal (GioKttian) Party ; the Com-
munist Party ; the Flamingo List ; the Independent
Liberal Party ; the Italian Socialist (Maximalist)
Party ; and the National Fascist Party.

The poll of April 6 was exceptionally heavy for
Italy — sixty-three per cent of the total electors ; and
it was a clamorous victory for Mussolini and the
Fascists. Out of the total 7,151,334 votes recorded
the Fascists scored 4,294,815 — surpassing by millions
their two nearest rivals, the Populars and the Unitarian
Socialists, the former getting 646,022 votes and the
latter 419,946 votes. It will be noted that the official
Nationalist Party, whose rise in 1911 and progress
thereafter has been traced in these pages, does not
appear, save as a “ rump,” in the 1924 election lists.
As an act of consolidarity that historic Party, long
before the 1924 elections, formally merged itself in the
Fascist Party, The committees of the two parties had
officially co-operated ever since November 30, 1922 ;
the parties were fused on February 26, 1923,

When the new Chamber met in June it had at least
on the right and back benches an unusually youthful
appearance, because the Fascist Government had re-
duced the age minimum from thirty to twenty-five and
many of the new Deputies were just within the limit.
In a division of Fascists and anti-FascLts — ^for that was
what in effect the Chamber resolved itself into — the
Chamber for most issues could be divided into 380
Fascists and 155 anti-Fascists — the Fascist Party’s
actual 355 Deputies getting the support of the Dissi-
dent Fascist and National rumps, the provisional sup-
port of the Giolitti Liberal and Constitutional Demo-
cratic groups. The Opposition at this stage was made

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

up of all the other numerous sectors of Left opinion in
three blocs led by the Populars, the Socialists and
Communists, and the Democratic Socialists. Most of
the old leaders like Salandra and Giolitti and Orlando
were returned, but Mussolini formed what was practi-
cally a Fascist Nationalist Cabinet, taking over himself,
as extra portfolios, Foreign Affairs and that of Air
Commissary,

It was at once apparent when the Chamber first
assembled after the elections that trouble was brewing.
Despite the sweeping Fascist victory, which really
represented general public conviction, the Opposition
mobilised themselves into a keen and sleepless critical
force — more so than even before the elections, when
their opponents were fewer in the Chamber and were
without the mandate of the suffrage.

The first thing attacked was the validity of the elec-
tions. The Fascists were openly accused of violating
the liberty and secrecy of the voting booth and of in-
timidating the electorate. Mussolini in a long speech,
delivered after the debate on the Speech in reply to
the Crown, admitted and deplored certain acts of
Fascist aggression and said that the perpetrators
would be punished. On the other hand he said that
the Fascist casualties during the elections were i8
killed and 147 wounded. He told the House “ to get
it well into their heads ” that he did not intend to dis-
band the Militia, but that nevertheless he meant to
transform it into a more regular arm of the State.

He welcomed the fact of an Opposition “ as educa-
tive and formative,” He declared that it was not the
Opposition but its manner of opposing that irritated
him ! He told them, however, that he was going to go
right ahead with his programme despite the Opposi-
180

ACTIONS AJ{D GOUmER-ACriOM

don’s accusations of flouting liberty, of acting illegally
and of refusing their definition of “normalisation.”
“ We feel that we represent the Italian people,” he
concluded, “ and we declare that we have the right to
fight on and to demolish the sterile monuments of your
ideology ; we have the right and the duty to scatter
the ashes of your hatreds and also of our own, in order
to cure the august body of the nation with a potent
lymph.”

Mussolini’s speech, while affirming his personal
determination to carry through his projects at all costs,
was a challenge to the Opposition which was answered
with a disturbing sequence of minor incidents, irri-
tating and disquieting for the whole country. The
two most persistent, outspoken and influential leaders
of the Opposition groups — that is, the anti-Fascist
bloc— ■were Giovanni Amendola and Giacomo Matte-
otti. Amendola had been a member of the Cabinets
of Nitti and Facta. He was the political writer of the
principal Liberal newspaper II Mondo and was the
leader of the Constitutional Opposition. Matteotti
was Political Secretary of the Unitarian Socialists. He
was a wealthy man, cultured and held in affection by
all who knew him.

While Amendola in his speeches attacked Fascist
principles and methods, Matteotti attacked Fascist ad-
ministration and administrators. Despite the turmoil
of the period, Mussolini’s speech, above referred to,
had made a good eflfect on public opinion. The coun-
try was with him, and the prospects of a return to
normality were good, when the news of the “sup-
pression ” of Matteotti fell like a bolt from the blue.

The murder of Matteotti is virtually a barred sub-
ject in Fascist Italy, not because of the disagreeable

iSi

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

facts inherent in the crime itself, but on account of the
political speculation which has been attached to it.
(.The affair plays a very important part in the history
of the Fascist movement. It led to a series of events
which provoked the dissolution of any further attempt
at collaboration and hastened the applications of
Mussolini’s political ideas on a basis of absolutism.*

CHAPTER XXI
THE MATTEOTTI SET-BACK

The Kidnapping and Murder of Malteoiti. Public Horror, Fascist
Action. Arrest of Suspects. Mussolini’s “ Solemn Oath." Opposition
Opportunism. Retirement to Aventine. The “ moral question." Musso-
lini Outlines Reform, Farinacci, Effect Abroad. Murder of Casalini.
Country begins to rally back. Aventme Suicide. The Budget Balanced.

O N the afternoon of June lo, 1924, the Unitarian
Socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti left his house
by the Tiber side — and did not return. His wife re-
ported bis absence to the police on the following day,
and witnesses came forward to say that they had seen
him assaulted at his doorstep and, struggling, thrust
into a motor car which then drove off at high speed
northwards out of the city. The news of the kid-
napping spread like wildfire, causing a ferment of emo-
tion everywhere. The general conviction was that he
had been assassinated, and the Opposition conviction
was that he had been assassinated by Fascists. On
J\me 12 Mussolini announced that he had himself
given orders to the police to intensify their search for
the missing Deputy and added that they were already
on the tracks of suspects. " Nothing would be
neglected to throw light on the affair, to arrest the
guilty and deliver them to justice.” Within twenty-
four hours the bloodstained car was traced and the
three men who rode in it with Matteotti were arrested-
A group of their associates who belonged to the Ardiii
Fascists of Milan was also arrested. Mandates of
arrest were issued against three prominent Fascists who

i$3

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

were suspected of being behind the crime : Cesare
Rossi, Head of the Cabinet Press Bureau at the Home
Office ; Marinelli, Secretary-General of the Fascist
Party, and Filipelli a Fascist editor. Of these three,
Rossi ultimately escaped to France, to be captured by
the Fascists much later.

A feeling of horror swept over the country which
was shared in by all respectable Fascists and by none
more than Mussolini, who saw all his plans threatened
with ruin at one blow. In the Chamber Fascist after
Fascist rose to denounce the deed. “ We can hardly
say whether our indignation or our humiliation is the
greater,” was one phrase spoken which reflected the
party feeling. “ Only some enemy of mine who lay
awake at night plotting something devilish against me
could have thought out this crime,” cried Mussolini
when giving his solemn oath in the name of his Gov-
ernment and Party that justice would be done regard-
less of consequences.

The crime as a crime rapidly fell into second place.
Its poHtical implications soon completely dominated
the aheady confused situation. The Premier’s imme-
diate efforts to bring the actual criminals to justice,
together with a speeding-up of party reform, only par-
tially assured a public whose faith in Fascism had been
rudely shaken. Mindful of what the new regime had
done for the social recovery of Italy, the people never-
theless could not reconcile the ” right ” with the
“ might ” of Fascism. Italy yearned for the return to
normality which had been promised them by Musso-
lini.

The more violent elements among the Opposition
parties— unlike the people — were not troubled with the
niceties of private conscience and public good except as
184

THE MATTEOTTl SET-BACK

a wholesale anti-Fascist and anti-crime weapon. They
seized the strong arguments to hand. Along with the
Socialists and Communists they made widespread
propaganda of Matteotti’s death, taunting the Fascists
and inciting the public against them. Indeed the
middle Parties danced to the Socialist piping and lent
almost the whole weight of their Press to an endeavour
to destroy the existing regime.

As a protest the Opposition parties left the Chamber,
Likening their action to that of the plebs in the internal
struggles of early Rome they declared that, meta-
phorically, they had withdrawn to the Aventine,
They created what they called “ the moral question ”
and indicated in a confusion of manifestos the terms
upon which they would return to the Chamber and
parliamentary rule. Their principal demands were the
abolishment of theFascist Militia ; Mussolini’s abandon-
ment of full powers ; the dismissal of the Government ;
the dissolution of the Chamber ; and new elections.

The Communists, with more astute political wisdom,
did not desert the Chamber. They recognised that
their best pitch for the political battle into which the
Matteotti crime had degenerated was either the barri-
cades or Parliament, certainly not a remote Aventine.
The old leaders, Giolitti and Salandra, also saw the
Constitutional Opposition’s mistake, so they too
stayed in the Chamber, but no longer as definitely
flank supporters of the Fascists — although in a re-
adjustment which Mussolini had made in his Cabinet
to restore confidence, he replaced Fascists by members
of the Liberal groups. The Under-Secretary of Home
Affairs was dismissed and Mussolini himself handed
over his Home Affairs portfolio to the ex-Nationaliat
Federzoni. The March on Rome Qiiadrumviratc De

185

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

Bono, who was now Chief of Police, was also moved to
another post.

Even the ex-Servicemen (800,000 strong and well
organised in their various associations), while always
in sympathy with Fascist ideals, wrestled with doubt
and offered conditional allegiance. The Labour
trade-union members now within the Fascist trade-
union organisations grew boldly restive. With the
country excited up to this condition the Opposition
redoubled its attacks, provoking fierce replies and
fiercer incidents. The Press preached revenge.

In the Senate — a body supposedly non-party in
character but mostly composed of men of the old
school of Democratic, Liberal thought — Mussolini
outlined his programme of reform and defied the
Opposition. He reminded the Senators that his
party was a revolutionary one, and added : “ Insurrec-
tions, like all great social movements, bring together
the good and the bad, ascetics and rogues, idealists and
profiteers, those who are violent from motives of
fanaticism and those who are violent from motives of
lucre. Selection, diflacult enough in normal times, is
much more difficult in exceptional times ; and it
sometimes happens that the need of revision is accel-
erated by the alarm-bell of some unexpected crime.”
His work of selection, he explained, had been more
than ever difficult with the enormous heap of problems
and work which had confronted him since the March
on Rome.

Analysing the behaviour of the various parties of
the Opposition Mussolini told the Senate ;

The Communists have tried to profit by the xmfortunate
episode to incite the masses to a general strike and to restore
the dictatorship of the workers and the peasants. But there
186

THE MATTEOTTI SET-BACK

has been no strike, because the masses have repelled the
Communist suggestions. The rhythm of labour, except for
a few hours in hmited localities, has not been disturbed.

The Repubheans have once more demanded the recon-
struction of the Constitution, — an absurd demand, which has
no political or historical justification half a century after the
National Plebiscite.

The Constitutional Democratic Opposition tend to avoid
the Aventine bloc because they do not think it opportune
to take on extremist responsibilities.

The Maximalist Socialists, the Unitarian Socialists, the
Populara and the other lesser elements advance absurd pre-
tensions which aim at a species of coup d'Etat with the inten-
tion of annulling the sufirage of April 6.

Mussolini then re-affirmed his own attitude ;

The goal of my general policy of government remains
unchanged : to achieve, at whatsoever cost, political nor-
mality and national pacification ; to carry out, with as-
siduous daily vigilance, the process of purification of the
Party ; and to dispel energetically the last residues of any
non-legal behaviour.

This speech had good effect. Out of 252 Senators,
225 passed a vote of confidence in Mussolini, 21 voting
against and 6 abstaining. The result on the country
was steadying. The discovery of the body of Matteotti
dead in a ditch about twelve miles north of Rome re-
kindled the fuel, but as far as the Government was
concerned it only meant the hastening of the prelim-
inaries for the trial of suspects held in arrest — a task,
however, which was hindered by an action against
De Bono, as will be duly described.

The aim of the Opposition was to fasten responsi-
bility for the Matteotti crime on to the Fascist Govern-
ment. It insisted that there existed in the Home
Office a species of Cheka. They blamed General De

i8y

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

Bono, alleging that as Chief of Police he was cognisant
of the kidnapping plan and made it easy for the
criminals.

During that summer of 1924 the anti-Fascist cam-
paign in the provincial areas raged with special bitter-
ness and bloodshed, with enormous mass manifesta-
tions organised by the Fascists in Bologna, Florence,
Turin and Venice. Out of this tempest there blew
the figure of Farinacci. He was a “ first-hour ”
Fascist of Cremona, well known to his Party and
Province. He now became a national figure whose
extremely energetic, hot-spirited and uncompromising
character, coupled with personal integrity, made him
the leader of the Blackshirt counter-offensive. ♦Just as
Mussolini was the symbol of the spiritual intransigence
of Fascism, so was Farinacci the symbol of its physical
intransigence.t The Fascists had marched on Rome,
and Farinacci saw to it that they would march on any
place or against any person who opposed them now.

In the Opposition newspapers and in the democratic
Press of foreign countries, Mussolini and the Fascists
were depicted as tyrannous ogres who should be wiped
out — ^wiJd extravagances of expression which gradually
disgusted the Italian masses, who began to realise that
the whole attack was all a sinister political game
detrimental to Italy. Feelings were then shocked into
reaction by another murder. This time it was a
Fascist Deputy, Gasalini. He was slaughtered by a
Communist in a crowded public tramway in the centre
of Rome.

In the immediate Government orders to the Fascists
demanding restraint and forbidding acts of revenge,
and in the practically complete obedience to these
orders — in face of a provocation that moved even the
iSS

THE MATTEOTTI SET-BACK

non-partisan elements througliout Italy — ^popular con-
fidence in Fascism began to be reborn. The gulf be-
tween the Fascists and the flanking Liberals became
almost bridged. The ex-Servicemen looked again
towards their old friends and champions. Mussolini
touring the country north and south was everywhere
met with the acclamation of a people whose enthusiasm
for Fascism had apparently been restored. The move-
ment was once again the symbol of national cohesion
and progress. The Duce was again hailed, as before,
the inspired leader of Italy,

The more the people rallied to Mussolini the more
desperate the Opposition became in its effort to pro-
long interest in the Matteotti case. It was their only
weapon left, because their political Aventine cam-
paign failed for the same reason that all campaigns
demanding cohesion among Italian political parties of
the old school had failed ever since 1870 — they could
not agree.

Not even the drastic decision to withdraw to the
Aventine could induce the various parties concerned
to take common action. Instead they split themselves
up into still smaller groups. They created new parties
and camouflaged the old ones under new names so as
to tempt desertions from Fascism. That was about all
they achieved. In short they went on to the Aventine
and proceeded to commit political suicide.

When they realised their tactical mistake, when
they saw that the country was not following them m
masse, and when they witnessed the Fascist recovery,
the Aventine parties, some in groups and others indi-
vidually, tried to re-enter the Chamber. It was then
that they met Farinacci in Rome. Broken as a moral
entity they were easily dispersed — and their dispersion

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

meant the debdcle of the Opposition as such. Hence-
forth they were looked on as anti-Fascist, and treated
accordingly. The bludgeon and the castor-oU bottle
which had terrorised the Communists and Socialists
became the means of reducing to impotence the last
leaders of the Democratic parties in Italy.

In the midst of all this trouble, which had looked
like wrecking Fascist stabilisation, a very remarkable
piece of news was published. It was announced that
the National Budget had not only been balanced, but
that there was a surplus. At the time of the March on
Rome the Budget deficit was 15,760 million lire. In
one year of reform that deficit was reduced
to 3,028 million lire ; by 1923-1924 the deficit had
shrunk to 419 million lire. The 1924-1925 balance
showed a surplus of 417 million lire. This apparent
miracle was performed by Finance Minister De
Stefani, one of the most remarkable men in Musso-
lini’s movement. De Stefani had been a Professor of
Economics at the Technical Institute of Vicenza, a
modest retiring expert with ideas of his own — a man
quite imknown outside his immediate circle. Musso-
lini had faith in his theories, and De Stefani more than
justified that trust. His triumph in this matter of
balancing the Budget, by restoring a sense of confi-
dence, contributed in no small measure towards
recovering the shaken prestige of the revolution.

In June 1924 the Opposition and anti-Fascists had
taken the initiative. When the year closed they had
lost it.

CHAPTER XXII

MUSSOLINI RETAKES THE INITIATIVE

Mussolini claims Responfibility, Attacks Avtnlime. Fascism beromrs
Absolute. Corporate State outlined. Capital and Labour both warned.
Constitutional Reform Commission. The Fascist “ Way of F.ife.’’ “ The
Goal is Empire.”

O N New Year’s Day, 1925, Mussolini retook the
initiative and moved rapidly to a political
counter-attack against the Opposition anti-Fascists.
The assault was unexpected, strong and frontal.

The Premier had without warning convened his
Cabinet. The Opposition believed that this was a
prelude to the resignation of the Ministry and the fall
of Mussolini ; but it was not. It w'as a meeting to
decide the opening of an offensive calculated to rout
the Opposition, and to fix the zero hour of attack.
For weeks the Fascists had threatened a “ second
wave ” to the March on Rome for the completion of
their revolutionary power. It was no “ second ” wave
of marching columns, however, that advanced to re-
conquest by physical force. It was with a fighting
Chamber speech by Mussolini that Fascism at one
stroke recovered all lost ground.

One of the most influential of the anti-Fascist news-
papers had published a telling leader asserting that
Mussolini and his Cabinet ought to be arraigned and
punished for anti-Constitutionalism. That stung
Mussolini into action. On January 3 he launched his
famous speech before a re-assembled Chamber — from

igi

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

which, however, the Aventine groups were absent.
He first replied to the newspaper leader with a taunt-
ing challenge. “ Article 47 of the Statute says : ‘ The
Chamber of Deputies has the right to bring a suit of
accusation against the Ministers of the King and to
bring them before the High Court of Justice.’ I for-
mally demand if there is anyone, in this Chamber or
out of it, who wishes to apply that Article 47 ? ”

After denying the existence of a Cheka he condemned
the parties which had left the Chamber for the Aven-
tine. He argued that it was not he but the Aventinists
who were unconstitutional. “ The Aventine secession
is above all anti-constitutional and revolutionary.”
The anti-Fascist Press of the Aventine parties had
“ disgraced Italy for three months,” he said, “ with a
campaign in which the most fantastic, the most terrify-
ing and the most gruesome lies had been spread daily
in all their ne,wspapers.” Recapitulating the meas-
ures he had taken and was continuing to take for a
return to normality and to stamp out illegal actions
he added that there were “ today hundreds and hun-
dreds of Fascists in prison.”

Then in slow, deliberate tones he said : ” I hereby
declare in face of this Assembly and in face of all the
Italian people that I and I alone assume the political,
moral and historical responsibility for everything that
has befallen. If more or less mutilated phrases are
enough to hang a man — then out with the gibbet and
up with the rope ! If Fascism has only been castor-
oil and clubs and not, instead, a superb passion of
the best Italian youth — the fault is mine. If Fascism
has been an association of criminals, if all the violence
has been the outcome of a certain historical, political
and moral atmosphere — again the responsibility is
igs

MUSSOLINI RETAKES THE INITIATIVE

mine, because that historical, political and moral at-
mosphere is one which I have created with a propa-
ganda lasting from the intervention in the Great War
until today.”

He then accused the Aventine of nurturing Repub-
lican aims so as to hit Fascism from that angle, and he
tabulated a list of Fascists killed and assailed in recent
months in conflicts with anti-Fascists of the Aventine
parties whose activities were shown to have encour-
aged a re-awakening of the Reds with consequent inci-
dents of bloodshed and incendiarism in Mcstre,
Valombra, Venice and Padua. “ You see from this
that the situation of the Aventine has had profound
repercussions in all the country. And now the time
has come to cry, ‘ Enough ! ’ When two irreducible
elements are in conflict the only solution lies in force.
There has never been another solution in history, and
there never will be. The Government is sufficiently
strong to break the sedition of the Aventine fuUy and
definitely.”

Jn peroration Mussolini said : “ Italy, 0 Signori,
wishes peace, tranquillity and a working calm. These
things we will give, \vdth love if it be possible ; with
force if it be necessary^ You may rest assured that
within 48 hours from the utterance of this speech, the
situation will be clarified all over. And all know that
this is not said for personal caprice, or for governmen-
tal wantonness or for an ignoble passion, but for
boundless and all-possessing love of Italy.”

In the midst of a Fascist ovation which marked the
conclusion of the speech an Opposition motion criticis-
ing the Government’s conduct was read and then
withdrawn, and the House rose sine die without the
expected debate on Mussolini’s statement bdng

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

allowed to open. Immediately afterwards Mussolini
summoned the Ministers of the Interior and Communi-
cations, the General in Command of the Carabinieri and
the Director-General of the Police to his office at
Palazzo Chigi and gave orders that all sabotage and
violence by Fascists or anti-Fascists was to be severely
repressed. Cavalry and infantry troops guarded the
Opposition newspapers.

The position had resolved itself into this — Mussolini
had appeased his extremists without giving way to
them ; he avoided disquieting the flanking parties ;
he had put the onus on the Opposition to disprove
seditionism ; he regained his own full initiative and
intimated his liberty of action ; and he mobilised the
forces to check violence in all quarters. In short, he
succeeded in pulling the chestnuts out of the Are.

But these were merely the immediate aspects of his
speech. Its real importance was that it marked the
speedier application of Mussolini’s revolutionary ideas
of government. He was no longer going to attempt
or pretend to work in collaboration with any of the
other parties. He was no longer going to introduce
his Fascist prmciples through a gradual modification
of the superstructure of the existing State : instead he
began to prepare new fovmdations.

This meant no difference in Mussolini’s plan nor in
the Fascist programme. It only meant a different line
of approach to the same plan and programme — the
construction of a new State — and on January 23, 1925,
the Fascist Grand Council declared that the general
basis of this new State was to be found in Fascist Trade
Union Syndicalism. “ The Council reconfirms that
syndicalist action is an integral part of the Fascist
Jtnovement and idea.” A resolution passed by the

MUSSOLINI RETAKES THE INITIATIVE

Council emphasized “ the ever-increasing importance
of the worker, freed from those universal Utopias
which are regularly contradicted by events.”

The Council’s resolution then postulated that class
co-operation and not class warfare was the goal of
the Syndicates — “ their specific task is the defence of
labour, but without denying the task of capital, sub-
ordinated in its turn to the exigencies of production
and of the nation.” It added that “ the Italian na-
tion, being poor in raw materials and ready capital,
but rich in man-power, must of necessity organise itself
as one unit to confront the struggle dominated by
State hegemonies. It therefore finds in Fascist Syndi-
cal discipline, which with new feelings co-ordinates
the intellectual and manual masses of labour, the
essential foundation of its expansion.”

Warning both capital and labour of the conse-
quences of nurturing any “ culpable incomprehen-
sion ” of the national scope of the Syndicates, the
resolution concluded : “ In order to make sure of
the disciplined development of the National Syndical
movement, the Grand Council — rejecting the criterion
of demo-Liberal agnosticism — recognises that Syndical
action on an Unitarian national basis must indispens-
ably find harmonious response in the institutes and
functions of the State. It therefore considers the solu-
tion of the problem of the inclusion of the organised
economic forces in the life of the State to be of funda-
mental importance in the preparation of the new
legislation of the Fascist State."

During the spring other decisions were taken for
reforms calculated to remould the State and Constitu-
tion ; and for the pursuance of this purpose a Com-
mission of Eighteen — ^known to the critics as thft

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

Solomons ” — was constituted. As this phase of applied
Fascism got more and more imder way, Mussolini
enlarged his appeal for the inclusion of all Italian life
and thought within the orbit of Fascism. Into the
practical he wove the mystic ; to the material he
added the ethical. His watchword became “ All the
power to all Fascism,” and he summarized his move-
ment by saying ; “ Fascism is today a Party, a

Militia, a Corporation. That is not enough. It must
become something more. It must become a way of
life. There ought to be Italians of Fascism, just as
there have been characters who were unmistakably
the Italians of the Renaissance and the Italians of
Latinity. It is only by creating a way of life — that is,
a manner of living — that we can make our mark on
the page of history and not merely on the page of cur-
rent news. In developing this theme he said :

What then is this way of life ? Courage first of all. In-
trepidness, love of riskjtrepugnance of bloated self-satisfaction
and lazy peace# To be always ready. To dare in the indi-
vidual life as in the collective life. To abolish everything
sedentary. Pride in every hour of the day to feel oneself
Italian. Pride in the discipline of work. Respect for
authority.

Through a work of selection we will create new genera-
tions ; and each new generation will have a definite task.
It is through such methodic selection that Empires are
created.

This is a proud dream, but I see it bit by bit becoming
a reality. We do not refute the past. We consider that
Liberalism has signified something in the history of Italy.

The goal is this ; Empire.

This declaration was the culmination of a general
Fascist propaganda of similar ideas carried out during
the early months of 1925.

MUSSOLINI RETAKES THE INITIATIVE

The twenty-eight months encompassed by January
1925 (when the above-quoted Chamber speech and the
Coimcil resolution were made) and April 1927 (when
the Labour Charter was published, the first Fascist
levy made and the Fascist State declared “ born ” by
the Council) mark a very important phase in the his-
tory of Fascism. Having already conquered, Fascism
during this period dug itself in.

To tell the story of this period — January 1925 to
April 1927— and to avoid the categories of events over-
lapping each other I will divide its leading interests in
the following chapters into three parallel chronologies :
(i) Opposition, anti-Fascist efforts ; Fascist measures
of attack and defence, (2) Foreign, colonial and world
policy, (3) Juridical growth of the new kind of State.

CHAPTER XXIII

WAR WITH THE ANTI-FASCISTS (1925-1927)

Beginning of Fuoruscitu' SuMressive Legislation. Freemasonry Out-
lawed. The ^aniboni Plot. The “ Matteotti Trial.” Negligible sen-
tences. Effect abroad. The Gibson attempt on Mussolini. The
Lucetti Attempt. The ^amboni Attempt. Special Defence of State
Tribunal Inaugurated. Death Sentence Re-introduced. ‘ Confine ‘ revived.
The Chamber. Giolitti’s last phase. Street Scenes.

T he Opposition, anti-Fascist efforts and the Fascist
measures of attack and defence from January 3,
1925, onwards took on characteristics which were
marked by desperation on the anti-Fascist side and by
doctrinal changes on the part of the Fascist counter-
measures. The Aventine effort ended in collapse, with
the eventual exile of its leading exponents, who became
fuorusciti with campaigns developed from Paris, Brus-
sels and America ; ^ while the Fascists, translating into
legislation their doctrine of the supremacy of the
Rights of the State over the old demo-Liberal belief
of the Rights of Man, fortified their combativeness
with laws which automatically made traitors of aU
opponents, with ample provision for dealing with them
in that unfavourable hghtv

' Liberalism no less than Communism was considered
subversive — and it was of course infinitely more diffi-
cult to stamp out because it had an ideology behind
it whose expression was nothing less than Twentieth
Century world civilization, with mighty exponents in
the great nations of Great Britain, the United States
and France) Not the least strenuous and ambitious
i$8

WAR WITH THE ANTI-F AGISTS

part of the Fascist programme of today is new Italy’s
effort to show the universal collapse of demo-Libcral-
ism and the consequent justification of an universal
Fascism — but that is getting ahead of my narrative.

The Aventine groups became in 1925 completely
disintegrated and their leaders easy victims of Black-
shirt pursuit. Farinacci was nominated Party Secre-
tary — the most powerful and influential position that
one can hold under Mussolini as far as the regime and
the populace are concerned. This appointment was
sufficient indication of the intransigent attitude which
the Fascists meant to adopt— and Farinacci justified all
expectations. In his piazza harangues he outdid all
Chamber efforts in virulous violence. He kept the
Blackshirt Militia continuously active in applying
blows and castor-oil. He became the terror of the anti-
Fascists. He held Italy under the manganello, whUe
Mussolini got on with the job of reforming the State.
Although originally a railway clerk, Farinacci was, and
is, a mem of keen active mind capable of much wider
employment than the work of a clerk demands. With
exemplary rapidity he qualified for the Italian Bar,
adding a vigorously conducted legal practice to the
frays of the street and piazzas. His relentless handling
of the political situation was an essential contribution
to the re-establishment of Fascist authority in Italy
after the dark days of the Matteotti set-back.

The complications of the Matteotti case, augmented
by the accusation of complicity brought against the
Quadrumvirate and ex-Chief of Police, General De
Bono, at the instance of a Liberal newspaper editor in
March 1925, were slighdy lessened by the decision of
the Senatorial Court which absolved De Bono of the
charge in June of the same year.

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

The attacks against Freemasonry intensified, and
further measures were taken to purge the Party of all
Masonic members and to curtail the rights of assembly
of the Masonic bodies. *As a result of the general puni-
tive measures against all antagonists there began a
general exodus of anti-Fascists to other countries, where
they were welcomed by a very mixed set of people
whose only link in common was hatred and fear of
Mussolini, his Fascists and Fascism^

From Liberal idealists to international Anarchists,
every sector of the anti-Fascist world was repre-
sented in the fuorusciti. The addition of fugitive ex-
Fascists like Gesare Rossi and dissident Fascists who
had left the Fascist ranks over the “ moral ” and
“ normalisation ” questions, provided the fuorusciti
with still more material for the campaign which they
began to open abroad. But there again the old story
was repeated. The extremist Left elements among
them quickly dominated all action. There was no
unity of moderate thought to check them and there
was of course no Government control to prevent the
degeneracy of subversive thought into criminal action.
Accordingly there began a series of assaults on Italian
Government officials abroad. In America and in
Europe consuls, consular officers, diplomats, and the
officials of the Fascist groups established abroad be-
came the targets of knife, bullet and bomb — ^violence
abroad in answer to violence at home.

What was left of the Opposition at home had sunk
to such low water that their only hope lay in a
ghoulish expectation that a gastric attack from which
Mussolini suffered during 1925 might prove fatal.

In November 1925 the Zaniboni plot for the assass-
ination of Mussolini was discovered. Along with
soo

WAR WITH THE ANTI-FACISTS

General Capello — commander of the Second Army
during the war — and others, who were said to belong
to Freemason groups, a plan was made whereby
Zaniboni — Unitarian Socialist and an ex-army officer
with a distinguished war record and one of the finest
shots in the Italian Army — ^masquerading in Militia
uniform took a room in an hotel with a window com-
manding the balcony of the Palazzo Chigi from which
Mussolini was in the habit of acknowledging the cheers
of the crowd. Behind the shutters he rigged up a
rifle with telescopic sights. He was discovered and
arrested about half an hour before Mussolini was due
to appear to greet a November 4 Armistice Day
parade. Fascist reaction was extreme and all Oppo-
sition newspapers were burned and their offices
despoiled.

During November and December 1925, a series of
repressive laws were passed against the Press, against
secret societies, against the continued employment of
non-Fascist civil servants and against the fuoriisciti —
who were “ denationalised ” and their estates con-
fiscated. These measures led to a further exodus
of the adversaries of Fascism from the shores of
Italy.

By the beginning of 1926 it could be said that the
Opposition was not only physically but also officially
suppressed by legislation, together with its Press.
What may be called the piazza or street-fighting aspect
of this suppression of the anti-Fascists ended about
this time with the almost complete elimination of
their forces. As evidence that this bludgeon-work had
been concluded, Farinacci was replaced by Augusto
Turati as Party Secretary. Turati was a man of
organising rather than rough-and-tumble ability, and

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

his selection marked the character of the next phase
of F ascism in its progress towards the full establish-
ment of its doctrines as an integral expression of the
State.

During March 1926 the trial of those accused of the
assassination of Matteotti was at long last held. The
case was heard in the courtroom of the out-of-the-way-
township of Ghieti beyond the Abruzzi mountains.
Of the considerable number of prisoners originally
held for trial, several — including Marinelli, the ex-
Secretary-General for the Party — had already been
absolved from charges of complicity by the prelimin-
ary court of examination, and liberated. Others held
on secondary charges were automatically liberated
through amnesty measures. Five prisoners remained
to face the tribunal at Ghieti. With the principal
prisoner Dumini, a Milan Fascist defended by Fari-
nacci, the charge against them all was reduced from
murder to manslaughter. Two were found not guilty.
Dumini and two others were found guilty and con-
demned to twelve years’ imprisonment each — ^but in
consequence of various reductions these long periods
of imprisonment resolved themselves into a matter of
only a few months. But March 1926 was not June
1924, and neither the trial nor its results was able to
make any outward stir in the Italian public, and this
for three reasons : (i) the Opposition had overdone its
propaganda on the case, (2) the Fascists had thorough-
ly cowed potential critics from any expression of
adverse opinion, and (3) the public, apparently content
to note the social order which the Fascist regime was
so rapidly restoring, had become indifferent to the
affair, Abroad> however, it fed the flames of fury
among the fuorusdti and their foreign friends. A

fVAR WITH THE ANTI-FACISTS

further series of consular assassinations and assaults
broke out.

In April 1926 Mussolini again narrowly escaped
being shot. This time it was a demented Irishwoman,
Miss Violet Gibson, who made the attempt. She fired
at him as he left a public meeting, the bullet cutting
and lacerating his nostrils. Mussolini’s comment was :
“ Bullets pass : I remain ! ” but he also made a more
far-reaching quotation : If I advance, follow me.
If I retreat, slay me. If I am killed, avenge me^” On
September ii, an Anarchist Lucetti threw a bomb at
Mussolini’s car. It struck the windows, but the driver
accelerated and the grenade exploded without injuring
theDuce. Eight onlookers were injured. On October
31 a young Anarchist, Zamboni, fired at Mussolini
during Fascist celebrations at Bologna. The buUet
was deflected by a decoration star which Mussolini
happened to be wearing. Zamboni was lynched where
he stood. Over forty dagger-stabs were afterwards
counted on his mangled remains.

These things made it so obvious that the enemies of
the regime were now relying on crime for the further-
ance of their aims that the Fascist Government, with
difficulty restraining the Blackshirt squads from acts
of immediate revenge such as that committed on
Zamboni, formulated a new series of enactions for the
protection of the regime. kWhat specially angered the
Government was the conviction that certain countries,
notably France, in giving shelter to the anti-Fascists
or at least in not curbing their activities were inten-
tionally acting to the hurt of Fascist Italy. Fascist
Press propaganda fostered this notion/

Addressing an enormous crowd of citizens who had
assembled outside the Palazzo Ghigi just after his

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THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

escape from the bomb of Lucetti, Mussolini ex-
claimed : “ This is the third time that you, O Romans
and Blackshirts, have called me to this balcony on the
occasions of criminal attempts and I accept your for-
midable ovation as the symbol of the fullness of your
faith and your devotion. First of all I beg you, when
this manifestation is over, that there be no disturbance
of public order. But all the same it is time to cry
‘ Enough I ’ After close meditation I have come to
the conviction that it is necessary to apply new
measures of defence, not for me — because I like to live
in danger — but for the nation. The Italian nation,
which works strenuously as is its duty and its privilege,
its hope and its glory, cannot and must not be periodi-
cally disturbed by a band of criminals. Just as we
have abolished the system of general, sympathetic and
permanent strikes, so do we intend to put a brake on
the series of attempts — even to the application of
capital punishment. Thus it will become always less
convenient to imperil the existence of the regime and
the tranquillity of the Italian people.”

<The growing feeling that the French authorities
were too lax in allowing the development of anti-
Fascist activities on their soil and that they therefore
shared an indirect responsibility in these crimes was
voiced by Mussolini in the same speech when he said,
“ The culpable and unheard-of tolerance given beyond
our frontiers must stop if the friendship of the Italian
people is desired — friendship which might be fatally
compromised by episodes of this kind.”

By November 1926 these measures of protection
were decreed. Chief among them was the formation
of a “ Special Tribunal for the Defence of the State.”
This was a Fascist court constituted to deal on court-
204

WAR WITH THE ANTI-FACISTS

martial lines with prisoners accused of political activi-
ties hostile to the regime. Originally constituted for
five years, its spell of operations were prolonged in
December 1931. #This court has the faculty of giving
life sentences and capital punishment. The death
sentence was at this time re-introduced into Italy also
for murder in civil crimes. In the cases of political
crimes the death penalty is also applicable against
those who are convicted of having made or plotted an
attempt against the person of the King, the Grown
Prince, the Capo del Governo and the Pope. The
old Italian system of conjino was also re-introduced.
This is a system for putting suspects and undesirable
characters out of circulation.- Social pests like drug
traffickers, extortionate moneylenders, gamblers, un-
qualified mid wives, etc., are segregated on various is-
lands, or suspects are placed under continuous police
supervision and forbidden to leave a specified village
or zone. The maximum period is three years, and
those condemned to this form of privation receive their
sentences not from a court but from the police. In
political cases the local Fascist authorities have of
course the greatest say, and the segregation spot chosen
for anti-Fascists was the island of Lipari, where they
were sent and given ten lire a day and the liberty to
work for more if they could.

Other defence measures included the closure of the
headquarters of all Socialist and Communist quarters
and the declaration that these parties were illegal.
Provision was made whereby any attempt to recon-
struct them became a crime, with enormous penalties j
similar steps were taken against all secret societies.
The Press became totally Fascist and the Cabinet was
reconstituted so that it became whoUy Blackshirt.

soj

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

From this series of anli-Fascist and Fascist actions
it must not be concluded that parliamentary life had
been altogether extinguished. With the evaporation
of the Aventine Opposition and the elimination of the
Communists, debates certainly lost all character as
debates together with their erstwhile turbulence and
bitterness. The Chamber became a mere routine
clearing-house for the passage of bills and the declama-
tion of reports, with occasional flares of interest when
Mussolini spoke ; or when Del Croix, the leader of the
ex-Servicemen, blind, and maimed in both hands, rose
like a symbol of sacrifice and suflering to thrill the
House with his always poignant oratory ; or when
Giolitti, the sole token of other days, sent in an occa-
sional arrow, well aimed but from a broken bow. So
sedate were the sittings that it was difficult to realise
the passions of the exiled anti-Fascists or the revolu-
tionary legislature that was being steadily built up for
the complete doctrinal transformation of the Italian
State.

There was always a hmn of talk and a noticeable
movement in this penultimate phase of the Fascist
Chamber — the last phase coming with the 1929 elec-
tions, as we shall see in due course. Deputies, or at
least a goodly number of them, wandered about as if
they were in their own drawing-room, some strolling
to join the groups that were always collected round
the doorways, others leaning in conversation over the
desks of colleagues or officials. Servitors flitting here
and there with notes and dossiers among the seated
amphitheatre of Deputies; liveried footmen with small
trays of coffee and water moving sedately to the
thirsty; the flutter of white folios on the tiered semi-
circles of desks — emphasized from the bird’s-eye view
S06

IVAR WITH THE ANTI-FACISTS

of the Press Gallery — contributed to a general feeling
which would seem to our Northern ideas to indicate a
spirit of restlessness and murmur.

And then there would be, still is, an immediate
sense of eager attention when Mussolini rose to speak.
No matter what the occasion, slight or important,
every murmur ceased and every movement was stilled
— deferential silence that was always arresting. Musso-
lini then, as now, being a skilled orator with a great
actor’s “ sense of audience ” and an instinct for
“ timing,” lets the silence last for a moment, holding
expectancy before he speaks — and then his tones are
quiet, almost conversational, but with a play of
modulation that in its elocutional perfection forces his
points as if they had been thundered.

He makes rhetorical use of dates in an extraordinary
way, rattling them off at a high speed and then
pausing while their commemorative significance to the
argument in hand sinks in. No gestures save, when
he begins speaking, or dxiring pauses, an unconscious
fingering of his tie : his only mannerism a slow up-
lifting of his massive jaw accompanied by a sudden
wide-opening of his eyes — this mannerism, however,
being perhaps more characteristic of Mussolini listen-
ing than Mussolini talking.

During the 1925-1927 epoch imder review in this
section, there was only one other man who secured a
like silence for his statements ; only one other man
with a like conversational style — ^masking a deadly
play of argument — Giolitti. Mussolini as a rule would
rise almost abruptly to speak and the stiUness therefore
fell suddenly. Giolitti would slowly unbend his gaimt,
sinewy length, and with his arms outstretched so that
bis hands gripped the far edge of his desk he would

20^

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

pull himself leisurely to his feet. The signs were noted,
the murmurs, with some expostulations, would in-
crease, to fade gradually into absolute silence, which
would be scarcely reached when the biting accents,
precise and resonant, of the then over eighty-year-old
parliamentary warrior would be directed at rather
than to the Government Bench.

The disintegrated Opposition, scattered to the
winds, represented, as we have seen, a multiplicity of
political creeds, many of them as bitterly opposed to
Giolittian Liberalism as to Mussolinian Fascism ; but
somehow in the general mind Giolitti was the token
of the entire Constitutional Opposition in that he
symbolized the whole former political order which the
new regime had thrust aside. His great and prolonged
dictatorship had stamped the fact of his personality
deep into the minds of the Italian people. His name
ran like a binding cord through the web of forty years
of tempestuous parliamentarianism.

It was the very parliamentarianism that the Fascists
were out to kill. Why then did they give such impres-
sive attention to the symbol of their enemy ? There
were several reasons. Giolitti was too shrewd to pro-
voke fhiitless outbursts. He let general invective fly
over his head ; never made long speeches. He sat
through each assembly as motionless as a hawk — and
as watchful — reserving his inteijections for rare and
telling occasions, paying little or no attention to his
neighbours. He was not gloomily hostile but alert and
wary. Accordingly, his tactics and his personality
combined to make him a distinctly dramatic figure in
the Chamber, And the reaction to this was keen
attention on the very few occasions when he did break
silence. Salandra, Orlando, Nitti, Sforza, Facta,

WAR WITH THE ANTI-FAGISTS

Turati, Sturzo — all these names, which had once
dominated Italian political life, counted only as
names of the dead — several of them indeed the
already neglected dead. Of that company Giolitti
alone survived as a parliamentary figure — and even
he was a wraith fading with his own fast-vanishing
generation.

The Fascists were not afraid of him, but he was a
ghost at their feast. Ghosts command awe if not
deference, and this, coupled with the Italians’ inherent
respect for the dignity of age, helped to secure for
Giolitti the tribute of a silent hearing only equalled
by that accorded to the Duce himself. He represented
the last link with the parliaments of other days and
other ways.

From this Chamber atmosphere you would pass into
the streets of Rome and there, in the year 1925 at least,
you would as likely as not meet a bunch of Fascists —
with clubs in their hands that would make Irish-
mens’ shillelaghs look like toothpicks, and more pistols
in their belts than you would see in a wild west film —
bearing down on some newspaper kiosk. There you
would see them seizing and making a street bonfire of
some Opposition publication — the unfortunate vendor
wisely keeping his thoughts to himself in a side street.
Or you would see a mob with banners pouring by,
singing Gminezza and knocking the hats off the heads
of those who were not bareheaded before the Black-
shirt emblems. Then you might see tens of thousands
of people pouring into Piazza Colonna for a mere
glimpse of Mussolini to give him an ovation. And
then again you might see, later, the same squadristi that
you had seen surging like lion-tamers among the citi-
zens, kneeling, immobile and in dedicatory homage
o 20 $

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

before the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior and the
Ara Patria.

1925 was a strange world in Rome — a world with
all emotions and passions at snapping-point : 1927
was calmer and more sedate, with cudgels forbidden
and revolvers not quite so omnipresent.

CHAPTER XXIV

IN THE COMITY OF NATIONS (1925-1927)

Misrepresentation Abroad. The Real Bases. Pfine Points. The
Alpine Gale. JVo 'Anschluss' Trade. Arbitration Treaties. Sea
Routes. Vis-d-vis Yugoslavia. The Albanian Buffer. Policy with
Succession States. Difficulties with Belgrade. Grievances with France :
Tangier, Tunis, Libya, ‘ Fuorusciti.’ Rising Place in World Affairs :
Debts-Reparations, Disarmament, Treaty Revision, Tariffs, Five-Power
Collaboration.

T he dispersion in foreign countries of the Italian
adversaries of Fascism contributed not only, as
we have seen, to sporadic acts of criminal violence by
desperate emissaries entering Italy to fulfill assassina-
tion plans, but it also contributed towards the spread-
ing of a false and exaggerated picture of Italian
foreign pohcy.,

It must be remembered that the fuorusciti included
every range of anti-Fascist hostility — ex- Ambassadors,
ex-Ministers, intellectuals, turn-coat Fascists, Free-
masons, Clericals, Democrat-Liberals and Sociahsts as
well as Communists, Republicans and Anarchists. It
must also be remembered that there were members in
each of all these categories who had friends and rela-
tives of their own beliefs who were living a silenced
and often menaced life on the peninsula, if not among
the prisoners condemned by the Defence of the State
Tribunal or among the confinati on the islands.

This common repression created a certain bond of
sympathy among these hitherto irreconcilable politi-
cal elements, and it was with the greatest difficulty that

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THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

the former constitutional elements among them could
refrain from nurturing a gruesome interest in the
malign plots of the more ferocious subversive groups.
There was no political unity or co-operation among
them, but their anti-Fascist propaganda developed
abroad such a uniform picture of Mussolini and
Fascism that the murderous plots, which had their
denouements mostly in the prison cells of Italy, were
made to appear as if justified in the eyes of the
world.

The Masons in France, the Liberals in England, the
Socialists in France, Belgium, Britain and the two
Americas opened their newspapers and their lecture
halls to the diffusion of a purely destructive criticism
of Fascist home affairs and alarmist reports on its
foreign policy. Practically no newspaper stopped to
analyse the merits or demerits of Fascism as a political
and governmental system or to enquire into the
doctrine behind it. Mussolini was depicted as a dic-
tator whose actions were arbitrary, impulsive, oppor-
tunist, changeable and fireakish : in short that his
home pohcy was tyrannous and his foreign policy
bellicose.

It is true that Mussolini dealt with every problem
which impinged on his progress, home or foreign,
with direct realism ; and his outspoken speeches
during this period contained phrases of disquieting
directness. The concentrated emphasis of the foreign
Press on these characteristics succeeded for some time
in creating the idea of a Mussolini ready to spring at
everybody’s and anybody’s throat. He was held up
as a bogey. He was successively alleged to be prepar-
ing hostile plans against Russia, Germany, Turkey,
France, Greece, Austria, Yugoslavia and Albania, and

IN THE COMITY OF NATIONS

to be developing expansionist plots in North Africa,
in the Near and Middle East, in the Eastern Mediter-
ranean and Adriatic and in the Balkans.

The fomentation of this alarmist campaign against
Fascist Italy began also to affect many newspapers of
the so-called popular press of no particular hostility
to Italy, and for this reason : Mussolini and whatever
he did or said had become a “ front-page story.” He
made good “ copy ” and the role which he was ex-
pected to play for the readers of such newspapers was
that of the Big Bad Man of Europe who could be relied
on to give sensational jolts to the Continental apple-
cart.

And then came the speculators. These soon noted
that the value of the lira fluctuated in accordance with
alarmist reports about Mussolini and Italian affairs.
Italy, morally and financially, was accordingly at the
mercy of a hostile foreign Press until she took measures
to protect herself and reveal matters in a truer light
to the world in general.

Pimitive laws were passed against anti-patriotic
speculators on the Italian Stock Exchange and steps
were taken to check traffic in the lira abroad. All
other calumnies against the regime, as far as foreign
affairs were concerned, were gradually contradicted
and lived down by the slow but continuous infiltration
of the true facts in the columns of many of the same
newspapers which had so readily accepted and pub-
lished earlier allegations. Newspapers of the great
Liberal tradition in Britain, however, continued to
censure Mussolini as the wilful wrecker of a Liberal
idealism which, as we have seen, never had expression
in post-war Italy. The Labour Press condemned him
on all things, home and foreign, because he had done

313

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

one thing — announced liis unbelief in class warfare
and therefore in non-Fascist trade unionism.

The real facts as revealed by the treaties, official
declarations and diplomatic documents published
during the 1925-1927 period show that Mussolini pur-
sued a foreign pohcy with the following main foimda-
tion stones : (i) inviolability of the existing Alpine
frontier lines, (a) prevention of the reunion of Ger-
many and Austria, and the creation of an Anschluss,
(3) belief in commercial agreements and the reduction
of tariff walls as the real means of arriving at a
united Europe, (4) faith in arbitration treaties for the
elimination of international friction, (5) preservation
of the sea routes from the Black Sea ports and the
Eastern Mediterranean, (6) the delimitation of the
Italo- Yugoslav dispute, (7) the creation of Albania as
an independent, friendly and buffer State, (8) the
development of an Italian sphere of influence among
the Successor States to the Habsburg Empire and,
(9) insistence on France’s fulfilment of the 1915 Secret
Treaty of London in spirit and letter.

Addressing the Senate on May 25, 1925, Mussolini
said : ” We consider the Brenner frontier irrevocable
and I hereby declare that the Italian Government
will defend it at whatsoever cost.” On the question
of the Anschluss he said in course of the same speech ;
“ It is not admissible. Italy will never tolerate such
a blatant violation of the Treaties. The annexation of
Austria to Germany would increase the territorial and
demographic strength of Germany, and that would
present us with the paradoxical situation that the sole
nation which would so increase its strength, making
itself the strongest bloc in Central Europe, would be
no other than Germany. It would be a frustration of
214

m THE COMITY OF NATIONS

the Italian victory.” And again in February 1926 :
“ From 1866 to 1915 the Italian nation suffered the
old and absurd Trentino frontier which, like a knife
in the hands of an enemy, drove its blade as far south
as the banks of the Po. That frontier was one of the
most bitter things in our national drama, interrupted
in 1866, but reopened and happily concluded in 1918
with the victory of our arms. The Brenner is inviol-
able. That word is definitive.” As a contributory
measure against Anschluss tendencies he intensified the
policy of giving financial aid for the establishment of
an economically independent Austria,

Having declared international trade to be the “ web
of peace,” he concluded in the two-year period imder
review no less than twenty-three trade and tariff
accords. And by the beginning of 1925 there was in
vigour between Italy and Switzerland a Treaty of
Conciliation and Arbitration (signed December 1924)
which became a model for a ramification of similar
pacts with the very countries which the enemies of
Fascism were declaring to be the “ next victims ” of
“ unprovoked aggression.”

The preservation of the communications from the
Black Sea and security in the Eastern Mediterranean
were developed through early recognition of Soviet
Russia and the conclusion of commercial treaties.
Mussolini in 1925, sure of the extinction of Commun-
ism and of Bolshevist influence in Italy, pronounced
his conviction that the Soviet regime would transform
itself into one employing a financial system no different
firom that of other States and expressed his belief that
economic friendship with Russia offered great poten-
tial advantages for Italy, and no danger.

He then contributed to bring an assurance of peace

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THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

in the Eastern Mediterranean by encouraging and
finally securing a network of reciprocal non-aggression
and arbitration pacts between Russia, Turkey, Greece
and Italy. This was his answer to those who accused
him of expansionist plans in the Levant. The Italian
Government entered upon the fortification of the
Dodecanese island of Leros in the Aegean Sea and the
organisation of Rhodes as a military station — the 1923
Treaty of Lausanne having given Italy full possession
of the Dodecanese group. A pact of friendship, a
treaty of commerce and twenty-eight secondary
agreements were concluded in 1925 with Yugoslavia.

The Conference of Ambassadors in 1921 had recog-
nised Italy as “ the natural guardian ” of Albania,
whereupon Rome began to consolidate her position—
Italy’s aim being the maintenance of Albania as a
friendly buffer state. In 1925 Italy granted a prelim-
inary loan of fifty million lire to Albania — a sum
augmented by more millions in later years under
conditions which practically amounted to a gift. The
creation of a National Bank of Albania with more
than half its capital supplied by the National Bank of
Italy gave Italy control over Albanian currency —
financial dealings which have proved singularly im-
fruitful for Italy. With the Pact of Tirana, signed in
1926, Albania (or rather the Albanian Government
regime then in power) virtually placed itself under
the protection of Italy. This was followed in Nov-
ember 1927 by a Treaty of Defensive Military
Alliance — documents which carefully specify not
only the full recognition of Albanian independence
and sovereignty but guarantee the maintenance of
these conditions. The policy of Italy in Albania
vis-i-vis the Balkans can in many ways be likened
2r6

IJ^ THE COMITY OF NATIONS

in principle to British policy in Afghanistan vis-d-vis
Russia.

The development of an Italian sphere of influence
among the Successor States of the former Habsburg
Austro-Hungarian Empire represents a reaction to the
whole history of Italy. We have seen in the earlier
chapters of this work how, in point of historical fact,
the Habsburg Empire was the residue of a system
descended from the Holy Roman Empire, which had
held the Italian people in fee for centuries on end.
We have seen the shackles torn asunder link by link
on the successive battlefields of the Risorgimento. Wc
have seen the last fetter snapped with the conclusion of
the Great War. In the official archives of the Italian
War Office, the war of 1915-1918 is entered along
vdth those of 1848-1870 under the common heading
of “ Campaigns of Italian Independence.”

With the collapse of the Central Powers in 1918,
with the consequent disappearance of the Habsburg
monarchy, and with the Peace Treaty dismemberment
of the Austro-Hungarian Empire — the secular exremy
of Italian freedom was laid low and all “ Italian soil ”
was at long last “ redeemed.” To have left it at that
would have meant a static policy which would have
put Italy at the mercy of whatever future events might
befall the newly created States which had succeeded
to the place of the fallen Empire.

Two post-war courses were open to Italy ; (i) a
policy aiming to keep the ex-enemy people in subju-
gation, to prevent militarism, and to control any
renewal of Austrian penetration : a policy in short
similar to that then adopted by France towards
Germany, or (2) a policy of assistance which would
help to make possible the economic and social recon-

2iy

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

stxuction of the new States, while at the same time
ensuring the security of the Adriatic seaboard which
contains, at Gattaro, the key-position to the naval
mastery of Italy : a policy based on reciprocal inter-
ests and mutual trust under the aegis of a friendly
Italy, with special influence in what would be, roughly,
an Adriatic and Danubian sphere of economic influ-
ence. The second of these two policies was adopted
by Italy and developed by Mussolini. Austria and
Hungary quickly reacted favourably, and the Dan-
ubian nations of Roumania and Bulgaria may be said
to have followed suit. But when it came to Yugo-
slavia, Italy found another kettle of fish. Despite the
twenty-eight accords of 1925, Belgrade had identified
itself with the ring of Allies with which France had
sought to strengthen herself against Germany and
Soviet Russia — the Allies of the Little Entente,
Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. The Yugo-
slav sector of this Entente, as a glance at Map No. i
will show better than words, not only cuts right across
Italy’s sphere of interest as above described, but it
includes that Adriatic seaboard so vital to Italy’s
sense of safety.

The internal policy of the old Habsburg regime was
to hold together the heterogeneous collection of races
composing the Empire by playing off one against the
other and by fomenting among the Adriatic peoples a
racial hatred of Italians, a sentiment returned on the
Italian side by disdain for the “ barbarians.” These
feelings would have faded out — as indeed they have
presumably done in most other sections of the old
Empire — had not the conflict of Italian and French
policy clashed in Yugoslavia. And so it came about
that the post-war arming of the Little Entente in
218

IN THE CO MITT OF NATIONS

general and Yugoslavia in particular, at the hands of
France, was looked on no longer by Italy as meaning
a French bulwark against Germany and Russia, but
also as a threatening encirclement of Italy.

The Italian people were therefore faced with the
prospect of seeing the age-long Habsburg incubus,
from which they had finally delivered themselves,
replaced by the presence of a France-backed Yugo-
slavia. The bitterness of the disillusionment was not
rendered less by the fact that this new and unexpected
threat was centred at the very Adriatic spot from
which Italy was most vulnerable, the very spot which
had been denied her at the Paris Peace Conference
despite the provisions of the Secret Treaty of London,
and the very region round which Itahan national
aspirations had for generations been concentrated. It
was moreover still more bitter for Italians to reflect
that the agents of this new peril on old terrain were
her ex-AUies in the war of deliverance — France and
Serbia.

Mussolini’s first effort to counteract this Franco-
Yugoslav move was, as we have seen, the pursuance of
commercial and friendship pacts with Yugoslavia.
The commercial pacts have remained active and
fruitful for both parties. The mutual importance of
Italo-Yugoslav trade was and is indeed perhaps the
greatest guarantee of peace between these coxmtries ;
but the friendship pacts proved dead letters. Events
swamped their spirit — and that takes us to the com-
plications of Italo-French relations as they stood
during 1925-1927 and as they have stood in great part
right up to the present

First of all, Italy held France responsible for all
Italian difficulties experienced on the Adriatic and in

S19

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

the Balkans, as above described. Rome could not
understand w^hy her great ex-Ally should push forward
the rise of Yugoslavia in terms of money and munitions,
nor could she understand France’s hostility to Italy’s
Albanian policy. Why, Rome asked, should there be
any Franco-Italian problem on what are Italy’s
Eastern frontier zones — zones where there were no
reasonable French interests, historical, geographical or
economic ?

Italy therefore concluded that France was man-
oeuvreing to encircle Italy in Italy’s own natural
sphere in order to choke the development of Italy’s
political affairs. This conviction, be it right or wrong,
created a sentiment of antagonism between Rome and
Paris — a sentiment which did not ameliorate the other
open questions between these nations.

In order to arouse in the reader’s mind some idea
of the feelings which dominated Italian opinion at this
time I shall describe the Italo-French position as from
the Italian point of view. The “ other open ques-
tions ” were Tangier, Tunis, Libya and the fuorusciti.
Italy objected to France’s alleged desire to bar Italy’s
“ reasonable and logical aspirations ” at Tangier as
a participator on equal footing with Britain, France
and Spain in the international zone — Italy basing
her claims on her position as a Mediterranean Power
and as a signatory State to the Act of Algegiras.

In Tunis the question was more acute. It will be
remembered that it was France’s coup in i88i at the
expense of Italy which created a cleavage between the
Italian and the French peoples and determined Italy’s
adherence to Germany as a member of the Triple
Alliance. In 1896 a species of Convention was
arranged to secure, under the French regime, the
220

m THE COMITY OF NATIONS

maintenance of the “ Italianity ” of Italians, their in-
stitutions and their children ; but soon these rights
were whittled away by various decrees.

Then came the Great War ; and Italy fought not
on the side of Germany, as we have seen, but of
France. During the war the French showed what
Italy considered a more just attachment to the spirit
of the 1896 Convention, giving facilities for the mobil-
isation and embarcation of Italians to join the Allied
forces ; but no sooner was war pracdcally finished than
France, on September 9, 1918, denounced the Conven-
tion. The pain given to Italian susceptibilities by this
step, immediately after the conclusion of the common
victory, may be imagined. A French decree of igig
made the acquisition of real property practically pro-
hibitive to Italians, and another in 1921, protested
against by both Italy and Britain, imperilled the birth-
right of 130,000 resident Italians in Tunis.

Italians strongly resented these blows. The new
Rome of Mussolini refused to accept these conditions
as final. The Fascist Government desired France to
grant a Convention which would guarantee, (a) that
Italians would remain Italians ; {b) that their children
be educated in Italian schools and preserve their
Italian identity ; (c) that work and business be not
disturbed by circumstances attendant on the menace
of having to change nationality ; and {d) that France
should not apply, in territory over which she did not
enjoy sovereign authority, French laws to the detri-
ment of the Tunisian Italians who had a position in
Tunis and had developed that position before the
coming of the French,

Italy is vitally interested in the colonisation of
Libya, a work which was in progress before adjacent

221

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

French colonisation. After the war she was excluded
from the acquisition of new colonies even as a
mandated Power, as we have seen, and at various
times she had asked that the question of the southern
frontiers of Libya be cleared up.

Italy cannot recognise the demarcation of this
frontier as it existed before the departure of Turkey —
a demarcation which cut away a great part of the
country’s natural hinterland. When Italy was in the
war she was concerned to solve, at least in part, the
problem of the Libyan hinterland, and to this end
obtained, through Article XIII of the Treaty of Lon-
don, the stipulation that the various problems of Italy’s
colonies would be examined and resolved the moment
peace was declared.

While the British Government has been able to
reach an accord with Italy concerning the eastern
Libyan frontier facing Jarabub — ^important not only
for itself but as a Senussi centre ; while frontier adjust-
ments have been carried out with Britain for regulating
the confines of Itahan Somaliland ; while Britain
has ceded Jubaland, which allows the development of
the irrigation supplies of Somaliland ; while the British
Foreign Office has been able to stipulate, or renew,
accords of reciprocal goodwill and economy xmder
certain conditions in Abyssinia and by the Red Sea —
while Britain has done these things in accordance with
the spirit of the Treaty, France, on the other hand,
confined herself to what was felt to be a meagre appli-
cation of Article XIII — ^the abandonment of one strip
of arid desert joining Ghadames and Ghat.

On the question of the fuorusciti the Fascist Govern-
ment believed that there must be a certain collusion
between the exiled anti-Fascists and the dominating
SS2

IN THE COMITY OF NATIONS

French political parties, with Freemasonry and all its
influence in the French political world. They put no
faith in France’s answer that the Liberal-Democratic
legislation of the Republic did not allow any action
to be taken by the French Government against the
conduct of political refugees, Italy had also another
grievance against France in connection with French
laws passed to tempt and coerce Italian workmen in
France — of whom there were many thousands — to
forego their I talian citizenship. The cumulative effect
of all these problems and complaints against France
served to embitter reladons ; but despite the material
aspects of each separate problem Mussolini always
maintained that agreement could be reached and even
an Entente concluded, not by tinkering with this or
that question, but by creating a new atmosphere of
trust and friendliness.

AU that Italy really wanted was to have France
sympathetic and not antagonistic to Italy’s general
aims. Once this sympathy was established, the prob-
lems would easily resolve themselves. On this theory
Mussolini developed his policy with France, and nego-
tiations for an Entente were begun in 1925. These
various problems with France (be it again noted) I
have intentionally given from the Italian viewpoint.
It is only by this means that eventual Fascist reactions
to the Entente negotiations can be seen in their true
light.

Between 1925 and 1927 Italy also laid the founda-
tions of Tripolitania as a real active colony. Work for
the reclamation of the sandy wastes and the commer-
cial exploitation of North Africa was begun in earnest,
together with military measures for the complete sub-
jugation of the hinterland rebel tribes, and the actual

323

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWFR

instead of the nominal display of the Italian tricolour
on the distant southern boundaries of the Fezzan and
Kufra,

Being on a fair way towards liquidal;ing her past and
having acquired a free hand to assert herself as a
Great Power, the Italy of Mussolini then began to take
an ever more important place in the comity of nations
— a respected voice in what I shall call “ World Affairs ”
as distinct from narrower Foreign Affairs. One of the
first problems tackled was that of War Debts. In
November 1925 Finance Minister Volpi was sent by
Mussolini to the United States to seek more favourable
Debt payment conditions and to negotiate some Mor-
gan municipal loans. Agreement was reached for a
War Debt payment of 2,042 million dollars of principal
and 365 million dollars of interest payable in sixty-two
years. The settlement included an annual payment of
five million dollars for five years with a subsequent
jump to an annual payment of twelve million. This
was considered so satisfactory that a novel form of
thanksgiving to Volpi and to the Governments of the
United States and Italy was inaugurated by the work-
men of Genoa, with the approval of Mussolioi. A
“ Dollar Debt List ” was opened to the public all over
Italy and the first year’s quota of five million dollars
due to America under the Volpi settlement was fully
subscribed even before Volpi got back to Italy. The
announcement of the success of this practical response
was made when Volpi appeared in the Chamber on
December 5, 1925, to make his formal report on the
Washington visit.

At the same sitting Mussolini capped this triumph
by springing to his feet, holding aloft a bulky package
of documents. “ Here are deeds,” he cried. “ I have
224

IN THE COMITY OF NATIONS

the honour to present for ratification, the Accord with
Washington, the International Locarno Peace Pact, a
Treaty of Arbitration and Commerce with Albania,
and a General Bill for the ratification of all outstand-
ing but procrastinated Laws. Finally I present a
Royal Decree for the acquisition of Italian citizenship
by the inhabitants of the Aegean Islands. With the
ratification of these we free ourselves completely from
the inheritance of the late Governments.”

It was all very dramatically done and the Deputies,
including the Liberal leaders Giolitti and Salandra,
crowded up to the Ministerial benches to congratulate
the Prime Minister.

With the immediate burden of War Debt to the
United States lessened and with the residue of the
late parliament cleared away, MussoHni’s principles
for the settlement of world problems gradually moved
into the orbit of international attention. These princi-
ples included ; (i) the interdependence of reparations
and war debts, but as an ideal the cancellation of both
— an ideal believed profitable not merely for Italy but
for the whole world, including America ; (2) the neces-
sity of disarmament. Mussolini’s formula for this, as
far as Italy was concerned, was ” Willingness to reduce
armaments to whatsoever low strength so long as that
strength be not exceeded by any other Continental
Power.” This formula, translated as a plea for naval
parity with France, proved another bone of contention
between Paris and Rome. Mussolini also expressed
his belief in qualitative rather than quantitative dis-
armament ; (3) Revision of the Peace Treaties ;
(4) The entry of Germany into the League of Nations
and the application of the Treaty clauses which
restored the parity of German rights ; (5) Reduction
p 255

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

of tariff walls ; and (6) the encouragement of colla-
boration between the United States, Britain, Italy,
France and Germany for the adjustment of world
affairs in view of the rising economic and financial
crisis.

Italy’s adherence to the Locarno Pact of 1925 and
the Thoiry Agreement of 1926 as a guarantor of
France against German aggression, with rights and
duties equivalent to those of Britain, gave Italy a new
and invaluable importance.

Such was Italy’s position in foreign affairs by 1927
— five years after the March on Rome, and six years
before the signing of the Four-Power Pact.

CHAPTER XXV

THE FASCIST STATE TAKES FORM (1925-1927)

Juridical Construction of New State. Fundamental Laws. The Basic
Groups. Defence of the Lira, Blackshirt Social Work. Emigration Re-
form. Corporative Idea. Labour Charier Published. Fascist igsp
Figures. Secret Negotiations with the Vatican.

I N course of the previous two chapters covering the
years 1925-1927 we have seen the recurring excur-
sions and alarms of anti-Fascist strife and we have seen
,the emergence of Italian foreign policy from phases of
static aspirations to dynamic assertions^ But the
basically important things in the history of the Fascist
Revolution over this period have not yet been touched,
namely, the juridical construction of the Fascist State.

*A 11 these other matters were merely a record of the
multifarious happenings which encircled and traversed
the gradual but steady building-up of the Fascist sys-
tem of Government and of the Fascist conception of
the State* Less spectacular than tales of “ attempts ”
and " treaties,” this inner constructive aspect of the
Revolution State is apt to be lost sight of. As a matter
of fact it is this all-important side of contemporary
Italian history which made me select 1925-1927 as a
survey span. It was in January 1925, you will remem-
ber, that Mussolini cleared away all pretence at co-
operation with any of the other parties and foretold
the initiation of speedier work for the establishment
of a Fascist Corporate State : it was in April 1927 that
the “ Labour Charter ” was published — and with it
the new Corporate principles came into being. That

22J

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

is why 1927 is a significant and “ milestone ” date in
the history of the movement.

Within the span of these two years there emerged in
rapid succession what may be called the fundamental
laws of the Fascist regime. In spirit and in practice
the way had already been prepared for the introduc-
tion of these measures. For convenience’ sake they
may be divided into ten blocks, but it is important to
note that these blocks are all dovetailed into each
other, forming one foundation.

Through all legislature from 1925 onwards there is
present a recurring re-invocation of the “ moral ”
ideals of Fascism, attributes which are often expressed
in mystic terms — a sort of patriotic religion with the
name of the Duce as the saviour of Italy. This abstract
but never absent aspect of Blackshirt development runs
like a binding cement round every dovetail joint of the
whole Fascist fabric.

The ten blocks of laws, passed at high speed and
without Chamber debate or other opposition, were as
follows :

(1) Laws which strengthened and accelerated the
executive power of Mussolini ^LS Capo del Goverm.
(Attributions and prerogatives of the Capo del Governo,
Primo Ministro, Segretario di Stato ; December 24, 1925.
Faculties of the Executive Power in issuing juridical
regulations ; January 31, 1926.)

(2) Laws which centralised authority and guar-
anteed control of the Fascist Government in the prov-
inces. (Regularisation of the activities of State, Pro-
vincial and Gommime clubs, societies and institutes,
and their personnel ; and of State, Provincial and
Commune institutions under the tutelage of the State ;
December 26, 1925. Regularisation of the services of
2S8

THE FASCIST STATE TAKES FORM

State functionaries ; December 24, 1925. The crea-
tion of the office of Podestd. and the institution of muni-
cipal Consulta ; February 4, 1926. Extension of the
Podestd office to every Commune in the realm ;
September 2, 1926. Extension of the attributes of the
Civic and Provincial Prefects ; April 3, 1926. Provi-
sion for the institution of an Inspector Service in the
Communes and Provinces.)

(3) Laws supposed to fortify the regime against
political or moral “ defeatism.” (The Press Laws ;
December 31, 1925.)

(4) Laws to safeguard national economic and finan-
cial interests. (A whole string of measures, stopping
inflation, checking the danger of a gold-run on the
Bank of Italy, 1925 ; creating provincial ” Councils
and Offices of Economy” ; inaugurating a National
Institute for Exports ; defending the lira, 1926 ; and
arranging agrarian credits in the kingdom, 1927.)

Mussolini’s strong stand in support of the lira was
made public at a speech delivered in the httle provin-
cial town of Pesaro on August 18, 1926. When aU
the currencies in the world were beginning to waver
and when many were taking refuge in inflation, there
was general surprise and misgiving when the Italian
Government thus boldly identified itself with a non-
inflationist policy. Time has shewn that Mussolini’s
decision was right ; Italy has so far weathered the storm
with her gold standard intact. Following the Pesaro
announcement the pound sterling was fixed at 9 2 ‘46
lire and the dollar at 19 lire as par values.

On December 1927, by a Decree Law, Italy re-
turned to the gold standard by repealing the incon-
vertible paper currency regime and by providing for
the gold convertibility of Bank of Italy notes. All

S129

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

liabilities and paper currency had to be covered by
the gold reserves of the Bank. This was a step towards
the fulfilment of the promise made by Mussolini at that
famous “ defence of the lira ” speech at Pesaro,
above noted, when he said ; “ I will never inflict
on this wonderful people of Italy, which has been
working for four years like a hero and suffering like a
saint, the moral shame of the economic collapse of the
lira.”

(5) Laws co-ordinating public works. (A long list
in which questions of labour, employment, the Syndi-
cates, credit and communications are involved,
1925-1927.)

(6) Measures for the consolidation of the armed
defensive forces of the State. (Initiation of regulations
for the reorganisation of the General Staff, 1925 ; and
moves for the creation of a centralised Defence Minis-
try, 1927.)

(7) Laws to promote public health : social, and
women and child welfare. Progressive taxation of
bachelors ; December 19, 1925. Maternity and in-
fant protection and assistance ; December 10, 1925.
Creation of National “ Balilla ” for the physical and
moral education of youth, June 2, 1927 ; Anti-disease
measures. Sanitary dispositions and intensive aug-
mentations of provisions against malaria, tubercu-
losis and cancer, 1927. Regulation to encourage and
facilitate co-operation between the Fascist Govern-
ment and the Fascist Party for the institution of sum-
mer camps, sports and recreations.

These seven directions of development meant a
change in the character, but not in the spirit of the
Blackshirt squads. With their enemies driven off the
field the Fascist centres were no longer gathering
S30

THE FASCIST STATE TAKES FORM

points for defensive or punitive action. They became
places of social influence round which Government
and Party sought to concentrate the activities and
ambitions of the new generations, always keeping in
the foreground, however, the combative spirit of the
early days.

For this reorganisation Farinacci, as already noted,
was succeeded in March 1926 by Augusto Turati as
Party Secretary, and in June of that year Turati
received the authorisation of the Grand Council
to revise the Party membership list, to prepare
it no longer for civil strife but for the practical
construction of the State by means of placing Black-
shirts in key-positions within the Syndicates, develop-
ing the interests of the workers, encouraging the parti-
cipation of Uruversity and other youth in the Fascist
movement, and preparing for the future physique of
the race through sports.

(8) Laws for the increase of Italy’s position and
prestige abroad and in her colonies. (Diplomatic-
Consular reorganisation, Jvme 2, 1927.)

The most significant and striking provision for the
prestige of Italy was the abohshment in 1927 of the
special passport under which Italian emigrants for-
merly travelled. The policy of the old regime, as ex-
pressed in 1900, was to facilitate the departure of
emigrants from Italian shores irrespective of who or
what they were and without Government concern as
to what became of them. Making a virtue of neces-
sity (in face of America’s post-war “ quota ” reserva-
tions), Mussolini in 1922 pronounced that emigration
was an evil ; and in 1925 he organised control over
the emigration centres.

The designation “ emigrants ” had already been

22r

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

changed to “ Italians abroad,” and the “ General
Commissariat ” had been altered to “ The General
Office for Italians abroad,” when there sprung up in
the United States during 1925 a “ Fascist League ”
which soon had a membership of 12,000. The
League’s propaganda, however, was too directly in
favour of Italian nationalism as against the obliga-
tions of its members as American citizens. The
League was therefore disbanded in 1930, its place
being taken by specially developed Fascist centres
whose activities were developed on the basis of eight
rules which had been drawn up by Mussolini in 1924
for the conduct of Italians in other lands. It reads :

1. Fascists abroad must observe the laws of the country

which harbours them. They ought to set a daily
example in this, even, if necessary, to the native
citizens of the country.

2. Do not take part in the internal politics of the country

in which you are guests.

3. Do not raise discord among your compatriots, but try

rather to reach harmony in the shade of the Lictor.

4. Give an example of probity, public and private.

5. Respect the representatives of Italy abroad, and obey

their guidance and instructions.

6. Defend Italianity, past and present.

7. Help to organise assistance for Italians who find them-

selves in need,

8. Even as I exact and see to it that Italians are disci-

plined at home, see you to it that you are disciplined
abroad.

This 1930 reversion to the 1924 rules for the conduct
of Italians settled abroad is outside the 1925-1927 span
of events now under review, but the circumstances
responsible for the change arose through Memorial
Day incidents in 1926 in the State of New York —
S32

IlAiA

THE FASCIST STATE TAKES FORM

incidents of public order in connection with the
“ Fascist League ” which had raised the question in
the United States : “ whether an American citizen
has the right to belong to a political organisation of a
foreign, although friendly, country, even if that
country be the citizen’s birthplace?”

In 1927 Mussolini said : “ Fascist Italy wishes to
send out beyond its confines only the competent
classes, not as a remedy for misery but for the
necessity of expansion and for Italian prestige in the
world. But our rise should not constitute a supply
of life to make good the demographic poverty of other
nations. And we must beware of the fact that many
countries favour anti-Fascism only in order to create
for our emigrants conditions favourable to their be-
coming denationalised.”

In pre-Fascist days there were three types of Italian
passports. One kind for the usual travelling and
business classes ; another for the workmen going to a
specific undertaking ; and a third kind, which was
just a “ bill of exit,” for the unfortunate, prospectless
and very large emigrant class. Fascist legislation
changed this system, removing the stigma of social
differences.

“ I have given orders,” said Mussolini, “ for the
abolition of the passport for emigrants with its infer-
ence of incompetence and as a token of the luckless
labourer. Instead there will be a single type of pass-
port for all citizens of Italy indiscriminately. Every
honest Italian, true to the regime, has the right to hold
up his head proudly in his own country and abroad,
whatever may be his social position.”

(9) Along with these laws were also passed new
organic measures for the administration of the North

S33

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

African colonies of Tripolitania and Gyrenaica.
(June 26, 1927.)

(10) Laws for the advancement of the principle of
the Corporative State. These laws, being in a con-
tinuous state of evolution, are better traced not only
through the Statute Book but also through the resolu-
tions of the Fascist Grand Council, whose more de-
scriptively worded decisions are invariably translated
into law.

On October 6, 1925, the Council decided on the
juridical recognition of the Fascist Syndicates, the
institution of a Labour Court for the settlement
of trade disputes and the prohibition of strikes and
lock-outs.

On March 30, 1926, it demanded the creation of a
Ministry of Corporations as a legislative corollary to
the more deliberative and specialised National Coun-
cil of Corporations. In July the new Ministry came
into being, Mussohni himself first taking over the new
portfolio in addition to his other posts.

In his inaugural address Mussohni said : “ The
Ministry of Corporations is not a bureaucratic organ
and it in no way intends to substitute the Syndical
organisations in their necessarily autonomous action
of arranging, selecting and bettering their adherents.
The Ministry of Corporations is the organ through
which, at centre and periphery, the corporative idea is
integrated, holding the balance between the interests
and the resources of the economic field. This is alone
possible on State terrain, because only the State tran-
scends the contrasting interests of individuals and of
groups, co-ordinating them to superior ends, with
results more quickly gained by the fact that all the
economic organisations — ^recognised, guaranteed and

THE FASCIST STATE TAKES FORM

safeguarded in the Corporative State — live in the
common orbit of Fascism.”

On April 30, 1927, the Labour Charter was pub-
lished. It is not my intention in this chronicle to
analyse Fascist doctrine as such or to concentrate
attention on the measures which give it practical ex-
pression ; that all in due course. What I am here
concerned with and what concerns me to the con-
clusion of Part I. of this book is the record of the
struggle of Fascism, its successful survival and its
points of contact with the life of the Italian people,
with just sufficient indication of the character of the
measures being passed to give a very general idea of
their purpose.

The Party itself during 1925-1927 developed its
ramifications to embrace aU phases of Italian life and
to enlist the rising generations. At the time of the
publication of the Labour Charter in 1927 there were
811,896 men Fascists ; 50,161 women ; and of youth
units: Avanguardisti •, 405,954 ; 14,215

Giovani Italiane ; 80,034 Piccole Italiane and 12,560
University Fascist Students. Of Fascists in Public
Services there were : 251,000 Civil Service clerks ;
79,000 teachers ; go, 000 Railway employees ; 77,000
State Industry employees ; and 41,000 Post Office
Fascists, making a total of 2,193,823 — to which have to
be added the tens of thousands marshalled in the
various Syndical federations and in many cultural,
welfare, recreation and sports institutions organised
by the regime.

With these figures in mind, and in the knowledge
that the vast majority of his fellow-countrymen were
in favour of the movement, Mussolini speaking for the
Government in presenting the publication of the

S35

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

Labour Charter to the Chamber said : ” We have
created the Unitarian Fascist State. Remember that
from the times of the Roman Empire onwards there
was no longer a Unitarian State. And we hereby
solemnly re-affirm our doctrine concerning the State.
We re-affirm no less energetically my formula of
d everything within the State, nothing against the
State, and nothing outside of the State.J ”

I have referred to the “ moral cement ” with
which Mussolini sought to bind the fabric of the
nation. In this respect he did not faU to develop, with
extreme care and precaution, the betterment of rela-
tions with the Holy See. The 1925-1927 period was
marked with secret negotiations with the Church.
With the Democratic-Liberal parties driven out of
political Life and their opinion stifled, and with Free-
masonry made a crime, the position was now ripe for
a serious attempt to solve the Roman Question.

'Mussolini’s belief in religion as a spiritual necessity
for the completion of the life of the State has already
been revealed. In the Roman Catholic faith he saw
two great things for the advancement and completion
of his Fascist ideal. He recognised that, despite all
the conflicts of the Risorgimento and despite genera-
tions of friction between Church and State, Italy was
and must always be a Catholic country. It was there-
fore logical and proper that, given the need of religion
for the completion of the State, Catholicism should
be the State religion, official, recognised and fully
honoured.'

He also saw that with the Church as the spiritual
ally of the Italian people, his dream of Rome as the
focal point of world-thought would be strengthened.
His reinvocation of a Greater, Imperial Rome would
236

THE FASCIST STATE TAKES FORM

rise up and enshield the Chair of St. Peter, Cathedral
of the First Apostle. He felt the spiritual negation of
a state of affairs in which a Catholic people, inheritors
of Imperial Rome, had a mere modus vivendi with a
Holy See whose Head was the successor to the Imperial
title of Pontifex Maximus.

He wanted to solve a problem that had baffled the
best brains in Italy for sixty years and he wanted the
notion of a Universal Church to connote gens Romana
in world-thought.

But he did not intend the absolutist ideas of the
growing Fascist State to make any surrender to the
absolutism of the Catholic Church. He maintained
the cleavage between the things that are of Caesar and
those that are of God ; and he did not intend to
abandon the Liberal formula of Cavour “ a free
Church in a free State ” with its corollary of “ liberty
of the individual conscience.”

Negotiations with the Church for the squaring of
these various circles were begun in 1925. By 1926
agreement on principle had been secretly reached in
which the representatives of the Holy See and the
Italian Government admitted (i) that a change of
relations was essential, (2) that the Law of Guarantees
should be abolished, (3) that, through a territorial
arrangement, the apparent and effective independence
of the Holy See should be assured and, (4) that a
political accord and Concordat should be drawn up
as a basis for new Italo-Ecclesiastical legislation.

With occasional polemical outbursts on both sides,
work to this end now proceeded ; but these outbursts
had only a theoretical value, — because the negotia-
tions were kept so strictly secret that their very ex-
istence was debated.

237

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

In the meantime Mussolini showed his goodwill by
a number of unilateral acts such as the gift of the in-
valuable Chigi archives to the Vatican Library ; the
restitution of several convents, including the specially
sacred Convent of Assisi ; the re-establishment of
religious teaching in schools ; the restoration of the
crucifix in schools, colleges. Government offices, the
law courts, Parliament and in the Colosseum ; the
official civic recognition of the major Church festivals ;
and the appointment of chaplains to the Blackshirt
Militia and its junior Fascist Youth organisations.

CHAPTER XXVI

BOMBS AND AN OLIVE BRANCH (1927-1933)

Attempt on the King. Terrorist Attacks on Italian Officials Abroad.
Attempt on Crown Prince. Schirru. Sbardallotlo. Bovone. Special
Tribunal Bu^. “ Liberty and Justice.” Amnesty. Lipari Demobilised.

T he next moves in the final establishment of Fascism
as a form of Government, after the publication
of the Labour Charter in 1927, were the passing of the
Electoral Reform Bill in May 1928 ; the solution of
the “ Roman Question,” in February 1929 ; the
General Election of March 1929 ; and the opening of
the first “ Corporative ” Parliament in April of the
same year. The Chamber as then reorganised no
longer consisted of Deputies representing Parties and
Constituencies, but of Deputies representing Fascism
and specific interests of the people — the Chamber as
a whole representing the total interests of the nation.
With the Syndicates, the Federations (Syndicate
groups), and the Ministry of Corporations in being,
with the Grand Council exercising its will over Parlia-
ment and with the Fascist Blackshirt Militia, as we
have seen, gradually transformed into a means of
maintaining the continuity of Fascism’s original com-
bativeness, while at the same time exercising a new
function of transfusing that spirit of combativeness into
the rising generations, the absolute dominion of
Mussolini’s Fascism in Italy was completed. All
struggle was ended and what followed was but the
perfectioning of the Fascist machine as experience,
experiment and circumstances dictated, sjg

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

April 1929 is therefore a date which puts a period
to the chronology of the rise and establishment of the
Fascist State ; but from 1929 on to the completion, in
1932, of ten years of Fascist tenure of power from the
March on Rome there are activities which concern
the history of the general movement and regime. In
this final phase I shall once more follow the method
of separating the strands and following each to its
end, leaving the patient reader to recollect that all the
sets of events are contemporaneous ; and I shall put
a still further burden on the reader by asking him to
note in his mind that 1929 is the real completion date
of Mussolini’s transformation of the Italian State — the
narration of events after that being merely a gathering
up of loose ends so as to have the field clear for a
totalised survey in the third part of the book. The
strands which I propose to unravel in turn are as
before : anti-Fascist attacks and Fascist defence ;
foreign, colonial and world development ; internal
constructive work, relations with the Church, and
perfectioning of the Corporative State.

As the years went on, with Mussolini, despite all
anti-Fascist prophecies, sitting more and more firmly
in power, the anti-Fascists from abroad were forced
more and more to criminal violence as their sole means
of opposition.

In April 1927 an attempt was made on the life of
the King of Italy. The dming of the infernal machine
was slightly faulty, so that the King had passed the
spot of the bomb’s location about five minutes before
it went off, killing fourteen and wounding forty of the
general public. A round-up and punishment of all
suspected Communists followed this incident. Then
began a long series of murderous attempts against
S40

BOMBS A^fD AN OLIVE BRANCH

Italian officials stationed in other lands. Italian
consular officials and the consular buildings became
the favourite targets of bomb outrages. During the
next four years tv/enty-seven attempts were made in
various parts of the world. These tried the patience
of the Italian Government and people to their limit.
The assaults were looked on in Italy as conclusive
evidence to what unscrupulous straits the enemies of
the regime had been reduced. And the fuorusciti
of the old democratic parties, who developed anti-
Fascist propaganda abroad, were, on account of
that propaganda, held morally responsible for the
criminal inflammation of the frankly murderous
elements.

At Nancy in August 1927, a bomb was exploded at
the Italian considate, but without damage or victims.
At the Buenos Aires consulate in May 1928, ten people
were killed and forty wounded by a bomb outrage.
Most of the victims were emigrants. At Li^ge in
August 1928, and at Tunis in December 1938 the
consulates were bombed. At Luxemburg in April 30,
1929, the Italian Legation councillor was shot dead.
At Nice in September 1929 a bomb was thrown at an
ex-Servicemen’s excursion, killing two and wounding
twelve. In Paris on September 1929 the Italian
consul was shot dead. At Brussels in October 1929
an attempt was made on the life of the Grown Prince
during his bethrothal visit to the Belgian capital. The
fact that former leaders of the Itsjian Liberal and
Socialist groups gave evidence at the Brussels trial in
September 1930 in extenuation of the would-be
assassin’s offence caused feeling to run higher than
ever in Italy against the fuorusciti^ their foreign patrons,
and all their works.

ft 241

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

This was followed by a conflict with Communists
at Faenza in Italy when about a dozen lives were lost
on both sides. The foreign toll began again. At
Cordova in January 1930, the consulate was bombed,
but undamaged. During the same month a plot for
the assassination of the Grown Prince during the
approaching wedding festivities in Rome was dis-
covered in Paris. At Zurich in June 1931 a con-
sulate official was shot at and gravely wounded. At
Cannes in February 1931 another was shot at, but
miraculously escaped. In May the Anarchist Schirru
was captured in Rome and found guilty of a plot
against Mussolini and executed. At Lugano in June
^93 ^ attempt was made on the consul. At

Paris in July 1931, an Italian Fascist Workmen’s Club
was bombed and four wounded. At Grenoble in-
August 1 93 1) bomb attempt against an Italian Social
Club. At Pittsburg in August 1931, consulate dam-
aged by dynamiters. At Digne in October 1931,
consul shot at and wounded. Consulate at Chambery,
in November 1931, bombed and damaged ; at same
place on same day a bomb was thrown at a Fascist
gathering, wounding a vice-consul and a consular
agent. At Scranton, U.S.A,, in November 1931, a
bomb was thrown at the vice-consul’s house, wreck-
ing the house, and wounding the vice-consul. At
Philadelphia on November 1931 a bomb was thrown
at the consulate. At New York during December
1931 parcels containing infernal machines were sent
out addressed to Fascist officials. Three postal work-
ers were killed before the plot was discovered. An-
other set of similar parcels addressed to various Italian
consuls was then seized and the bombs exploded by
experts.

242

BOMBS AND AN OLIVE BRANCH

At Lugano in January 1932 a bomb was found in
the consulate and in the same month at Paris the
Italian consul-general was shot at and wounded. In
June 1932 an Anarchist Sbardallotto was caught in
Rome armed to assassinate Mussolini, and at the same
time a man called Bovone, the author of a series of
minor terrorist explosions in Italy and believed to have
plotted against Mussolini, was also caught. Both were
found guilty by the Special Defence of the State tri-
bunal, and executed. These cases were followed by
further bombings against consulates and the personnel
of Blackshirt institutions. One of the most notorious
cases was the dynamiting of the house in Philadelphia
of the chairman of the Sons of Italy Society, when the
wife of the chairman was killed and twelve people
injured, including four children. In February 1933
the United States Federal Police discovered evidence
of an anti-Fascist terrorist gang with ramifications
over several States.

If the above List included attempts, murders and
woundings in connection with junior Fascist officials
and Italian subjects in other lands known to be Fascist
sympathisers, the catalogue of crime would be trebled.
The general world-unrest of this period from 1927 on-
wards was also considered to contribute towards
fostering the mentality that chose such homicidal
political methods. This feeling is reflected in an
article then written by Mussolini in the Popolo d'ltalia
in which he spoke of “ the ferocity and stupidity of
certain recurring crimes ” as symptomatic of a “ white
racial society imperilled by decadence.”

Giolitti died on July 17, 1928, at the age of eighty-
six, and although he died faithful to his old parliamen-
tary ideals, he is said to have denounced, shortly before

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

his passing, the whole behaviour of the fuomsciti. In
his latter days he seldom took his place in the
Chamber ; but aged and erect he represented an
epoch which only ended with his death.

Over the same period as that covered by the above-
enumerated list of violent anti-Fascist acts abroad the
Special Tribunal was busy in Italy trying Communists
and anti-Fascist sympathisers who were periodically
rounded up. It was like a vicious circle. Over looo
prisoners were sentenced, many receiving punish-
ments of over ten years’ imprisonment. Cesare Rossi,
ex-Secretary of the Fascist Party, whom we saw
fleeing Italy in the chapter on Matteotti, was de-
coyed on to Italian soil at Lake Garda in September
1929, captured, found guilty of co-operating with the
Paris fuorusciti and sentenced to thirty years.

A group of these fuorusciti, who had at one time be-
longed to the relatively moderate parties of the
Italian Opposition groups, formed themselves in 1928
into a “ National Alliance of Liberty ” for the purpose
of centralising anti-Fascist propaganda : but by 1930
this Alliance had developed an extremist wing known
as “ Liberty and Justice ” which dominated aU activi-
ties. “ Liberty and Justice ” added belief in violence
to its immediate creed ; and the members of this
secret society were for this reason believed by the
Fascists to be co-operating with the Communists and
Anarchists as executive allies in their crime movement.
Allegation of this was produced at the trial of the
Anarchist Sbardallotto, causing a Press outburst in
Italy which held all the elements of the scattered
Opposition as incriminated.

This Liberty and Justice association developed
clandestine propaganda in Italy during 1929-1930.

BOMBS AND AN OLIVE BRANCH

The Fascist Government at the same time organised a
secret volunteer service known as the O.V.R.A. (this
mysterious title being supposed to mean Opera Vigil-
anza Reati Antinazionali) . It first became known to the
public after the arrest in November 1930 of two young
intellectuals who were identified with the Liberty and
Justice activities, and each sentenced to fifteen years’
imprisonment.

One of the prime movers of this secret anti-Fascist
society turned out to be a youth in the employment
of the Italian Government as a Fascist propaganda
lecturer in the United States. In October 1931 this
youth hired a plane in France and flew over Rome
dropping “ National Alliance ” anti-Fascist leaflets,
and thereafter disappeared from public ken. I cite these
matters to illustrate the long-distance campaign which
the enemies of Fascism were now waging.

No such sporadic acts of subversive crime or Liberal
penetration could ever by this time have hoped to
overturn the strongly fortified Fascist Government.
The regeneration of the Italian nation was more-
over becoming more patent with every month, and
the regime more acclaimed by the great majority of
the Italian people.

It was Mussolini’s dream to have every Italian a
convinced Fascist. He longed to be able to have no
more Special Defence Tribunals, no more conjino, no
more denunciations of anti-Fascist Italians abroad.
As evidence of his will in this matter he sought to
crown the celebrations held in honour of the Tenth
Anniversary, the “ Decennale,^^ of the March on Rome
with a general amnesty. At Milan on October 25,
1932, he made a speech in which he spoke of a pending
“ gesture of forgiveness to the outcast and deluded.”

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

It was to be “ an act of mercy in favour of political
adversaries who had deceived themselves or had been
deceived concerning the strength and durability of the
Fascist regime.” Nine days later an amnesty decree
was published.

At that date there were 1056 people announced as
serving sentences for anti-Fascist crimes. Of this
total 423 were liberated in terms of the amnesty ; 204
had their sentence reduced by three years ; and 12
by five years — the total liberated being 639. At the
same date those confined on the islands were 983 plus
103 in transit. Of this total of 1086, 595 were released.
In the spring of 1933 the island of Lipari, the principal
location of political conjinati, was closed as a detention
centre and its staff demobilised.

The 1932 amnesty was followed in a few weeks by
another decree annulling the penalties inflicted on a
group of 17 fuorusciti who, in accordance with the
Law of January 31, 1926, had been outlawed with loss
of Italian citizenship and forfeiture of all property in
Italy.

The names on the list invite thought, for they show
how the whirligig of time and circumstance could
divide erstwhile comrades on those political battle-
fields which we have traversed in course of this chron-
icle. The two major episodes in Mussohni’s career
which split friendships and changed close colleagues
into bitter enemies were his abandonment of the
Socialist Party when that Party pronounced against
intervention in the Great War, and the reactions
hostile to the Fascist regime after the Mattcotti affair.
People prominently identified with these two episodes
figure among the condoned fuorusciti. For instance,
it contained the names of Emilio Bazzi, former Pro-

BOMBS Am AK OLIVE BRANCH

fessor at Ravenna University, a Republican and friend
of the Mussolinis in the old Forli days ; Angelo
Tonelli, Socialist and former friend, who became one
of the leading anti-Fascist organisers in Switzerland ;
Vincenzo Vacirca, Socialist deputy, another erst-
while friend who had become editor of an anti-
Fascist newspaper in New York.

Then there was Francesco Scozzese, a Socialist com-
rade of Mussolini in the old pre-war days when they
both worked on the Avanti newspaper. Mussolini’s
penultimate and fiercest duel was fought with Scoz-
zese. At Leghorn they fought fifteen bouts on end
with sabres, Scozzese finally fainting from loss of
blood. They became reconciled personally, but re-
mained unrelenting political adversaries.

Of those on the list whose enmity arose indirectly
out of the Matteotti matter through the “ moral
question,” there was Giuseppe Donati, ex-Fascist
Deputy and former collaborator with MussoHni on the
Popolo dl Italia ; Massimo Rocca, ex-Fascist deputy
and one-time member of the Fascist Directory;
GftctaB«3=5SaBli^i«i, the- -firsFESssrio

(Biaekshi¥t-^FEf^'ni’_Ei®r€«ce. Other cases which
involved more violent changes away from loyalty
were those of Cesare Rossi, ex-Secretary of the Party,
and Arturo Fasciolo, who had been one of Mussolini’s
confidential stenographers.

Thus closes the story of the conflict of the Fascists
and anti-Fascists until the end of the Blackshirt
Decennale. -It reveals that personal vindictiveness has
no place in Mussolini’s make-up^

CHAPTER XXVII

AN INTERNATIONAL POWER (1927-1933)

National and World Affairs. Italy’s Attitude in igsS. Naval Talks
with France. The Parity Snag. Mr. Henderson's Effort. Mussolini
opens World Appeal. “ Clean Slate ” Plea to America. East Mediter-
ranean Peace. Malta, Position in iggs. Rise of Hitler. Feeling
against Yugoslavia. Italy with France or Germany ? Four-Power Pact.

T he world economic crisis began to put its imprint
on the foreign policies of all nations in the year
1928. Before that date economic and political prob-
lems inherent in any post-war period were looked on
by each country concerned from almost wholly a
national point of view. As the depression grew and
settled over the globe it became ever more patent that
these conflicting viewpoints were not only augmenting
the gathering shadows but were to a large degree their
cause. It became patent as the years advanced that
the life of aU nations as a complex whole as well as the
lives of the individual countries were at stake.

Foreign policies accordingly moved, between the
years 1928 and 1932, with a speed in ratio to the
growing common danger, towards a common or cor-
related policy, because it was realised that only by
collaboration could civilisation, as we know it, be
saved. The world had become too small to wthstand,
when divided, the devastating repercussions of the
universal and inflexible laws of economy and finance.
’But international collaboration meant that common
principles and formulas of action had to be found.i
248

AJ{ JNTERMTIONAL POWER

The period now under review is characterised by
polemical and diplomatic clashes which marked the
search for these necessary common principles and for-
mulas. The conferences of the immediate post-war
years were inter-AUied and ex-AUied discussions for
the imposition and maintenance of peace based on
victory. They were therefore, vis-d-vis the beaten
nations, unilateral discussions. The laws, snares, pit-
falls and tricks of international finance, however, by
tangling the interests of all nations into an endless
knot, hastened the need of common discussion, else
the knot had strangled Europe. Germany , the sole
ex-enemy unit which remained a Great Power, gradu-
ally assumed — first through the League, then through
insistence on the neglected clauses of the Versailles
Treaty, which conceded her conditional but none the
less equality rights, and finally through the Pact of
Four— an ever fuller collaborative place in the comity
of nations. The United States, longing to be quit of
Europe, was jolted out of such hope by the lariat tugs
of this all-encompassing financial crisis. It found
itself by 1932 no longer a spectator but a feUow-
member — crestfallen but still avuncular — actually cor-
ralled with the whole European family.

By the spring of 1933 the world crisis in its localised
forms of unemployment and bank failures harassed the
American people. The complicated niceties of the
situation in their interlocked, transnational aspects
were ignored by the American public. Washington
moved towards a modified form of dictatorship in an
effort to throw the United States clear of entangle-
ments, home and foreign. The closing months of 1933
saw America neither crestfallen nor avuncular, but
reliant and collaborative.

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

At first sight it may seem that the above descriptive
cartoon of world affairs from 1929 onwards has little
enough to do with the story of Fascist Italy ! But if
you will recall what has already been written of Musso-
Uni’s foreign poUcy you will see that the Fascist leader
had already, and very long ago, enunciated principles
and formulas which were destined to be highly impor-
tant if not prime influences towards reaching the solu-
tion of the great problems as confronted by world
collaboration today. The whole period 1929-1933
shows the Italy of Mussolini deliberately moving to
a high place in world affairs — an infinitely higher
place than it ever held in its national history, a place
only comparable, for its influence on world thought,
to the distant but now not forgotten past of the
ItaUan people when Italy was last united under the
insignia of the ancient instead of modern Roman
lictor.

And now that Fascist Italy is on this high consulta-
tive level with the greatest Powers of the modem
western world, it is one of the byplays of the so-called
higher poUtics to calculate what Italy is likely to do
in international co-operative poUcy. Mussolini has
already given all the clues. We have seen how from
the very beginning of his foreign responsibilities Musso-
Uni had not looked on peace treaties as “ eternal,”
and how he had voiced the opinion ‘that Germany
must be re-established if Europe were to be saved from
disasters We have seen how he had criticised the
post-war poUcy of France. We have seen how he
favoured the economic and political independence of
Austria and Hungary, and we have seen how he dis-
approved of France’s Little Entente encircling bloc of
nations. From these factors it was deduced in the
S50

AN INTERNATIONAL POWER

spring of 1933 that Italy was moving towards a species
of Eiitente with Germany as against France.

On the other hand, we have also seen that the pre-
vention of a reunion of the Germane- Austrian nations
is a basic principle of his foreign policy, and of how
the Nazis, and the Nazi Government, approve of that
very union. We have, again, also seen how Fascist
Italy is a fellow guarantor with Britain in the Locarno
Pact guaranteeing French security against German
aggression on the Rhine. These factors in turn
seemed to indicate that Italy must lean to France. It
was the interplay of searching consideration of aU
these factors in all their aspects, as we will soon see,
which contributed, among other things, to the
delay between consideration of the first draft of the
Four- Power Pact as submitted by Mussolini to
Macdonald on the Ostia road to Rome on March 18,
1933, and the signing of the final text on July 15, 1933.

It may here be noted in connection with the story
of the rise and establishment of Fascism that the con-
sistency of the Itahan Government’s poficy was due
to the fact of the Blackshirt regime. Mussolini was
the creative motive force of that policy, but it was
the steadying and controlling result of the Fascist
Party flywheel which gave it smooth continuity of
action. Between 1927-1933 British foreign policy
varied under Conservative, Labour and National
Governments. American policy changed with its
Presidents. France’s foreign policy— while remaining
with “ security ” nailed to the mast — ^varied the
number and quality of the nails with every one of its
many changes of Premiers. German policy has swung
with the advent of Hider. No other Government has

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

enjoyed such complete internal freedom of action as
that of Fascist Italy.

It has not to be imagined, however, that Fascist
Italy suddenly washed itself clean of the dross of
everyday foreign politics and became a glittering
prophet and saviour of a tottering world ! Far from
it. The Government’s constructive utterances on the
international deadlocks of 1927-1933 came mostly as
i||terpellations in debates with Italy’s neighbours—
debates and references which are marked with the
special vehemence of Fascist national self-interest
rather than with universal altruism. And to the
official expressions of Governmental views there have
to be added the semi-official and the non-official but
indicative sporadic polemics of the Fascist Press.

During this phase of foreign policy, newspaper
comment was characterised — over carefully timed
periods — by sabre rattling on the Brenner, ultra-
nationalism in Dalmatia, roars at Yugoslavia, inter-
vention in the affairs of Malta, and attacks on
France. On the other hand, the continuation of
the policy of trade and conciliation treaties with all
countries, including those on occasion trounced by
the Press, was not interrupted. But the great inter-
national constructive element becomes more and
more dominating and urgent as 1933 is approached.
Let us take these foreign and international affairs in
their order.

In June 1928 the Italian Government, in answer to
criticisms that it was following a foreign and imperial-
istic policy fay favour of Britain, asserted the complete
independence of Italy in these matters, Foreign Minis-
ter Grandi in the Senate declaring : “ Italy has no
need today to ask authorisation of any kind for her

£52

AN INTERNATIONAL POWER

policy,” and in stating that “ Italy is perfectly
autonomous in conducting her foreign affairs ” he con-
cluded, “ I would add, however, that one of the car-
dinal points of our policy is friendship with Britain.”
In this same speech he announced that conversations
with France had taken a hopeful turn and that the
Tangier question had been solved to the satisfaction
of all parties. He recalled the traditional friendship
that existed between Italy and Hungary and indica1;ad
how the development of that friendship was being
directed among other things to special facilitations for
Hungarian traffic to the port of Fiume. From this he
passed to Yugoslavia and entered a troubled area. He
recalled that the Italo-Yugoslav Treaty of Friendship
signed away back in 1924 and integrated in the 1925
Treaty of Nettuno had never been ratified by Belgrade.
He denounced “anti-Italian” incidents in Yugo-
slavia as “ bound up with a complete ignorance of
real conditions in Fascist Italy.”

Turning to the Peace treaties, Grandi, voicing the
convictions of Mussolini and the Fascist Government,
said : “ Peace treaties are sacred in that they are the
conclusion of great and bloody efforts and mark the
end of great sacrifices and great griefs ; but Peace
treaties are not the outcome of divine justice but of
human intelligence under influences — especially at the
finish of a gigantic war — of a very exceptional order.
Gould anyone dare affirm that the Peace treaties
from Versailles onwards are perfect works ? They
are the work of human hands, I say, and therefore
not perfect ; but, I add, always capable of being im-
proved. There are in the Peace treaties great facts
concluded which correspond to the supreme reasoning
of justice — great facts which remain' as such, and

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

which no one of us thinks of revoking or of even dis-
cussing. But there are territorial, colonial, financial
and social clauses in the treaties which could be dis-
cussed, reviewed and bettered with the aim of pro-
longing the duration of the treaties themselves, and
therefore of assuring a longer period of peace,” He
prophesied that in the matter of treaty re-adjustment
Europe would be confronted with a “ most interesting
and delicate point in its history any time between
the years 1935 and 1940.”

From this the Foreign Minister again reiterated
Mussolini’s claim concerning the interdependence of
war debts and reparations, and fixed Italy’s position
on the armaments questions on the following five
points, (i) The interdependence of all kinds of arma-
ments. (2) The proportion of armaments should not
be based on the status quo. (3) The limits of Italian
armaments cannot have an absolute character, but
must be relative to the total armaments of the other
States, that is, parity with the most-armed European-
Continental nation. (4) The Itahan Government
declares itself a priori ready to accept as the limits of
its own armaments whatsoever figure, even the very
lowest, so long as it is not surpassed by any other
European-Continental Power. And (5) the methods
employed to obtain the limitations ought to be char-
acterised with the greatest simplicity and should not
imply the necessity of external control.

It is of considerable interest and importance to note
how Mussolini keeps hammering away with the enun-
ciation of his points until they emerge from the more
or less abstract realm olex-parte statements and become
driven home in the practical international field, the
process sometimes taking years. We have seen how

AN INTERNATIONAL POWER

his ideas — the pensiero — in internal affairs became
translated into effective action. It is now the turn of
foreign affairs to experience this materialisation from
pensiero into azione.

In the spring of 1928 the Austrian Chancellor and
a group of pan-Germanists opened a strong criticism
of Fascist Italy’s handling of the Austrian-born min-
ority in the Alto Adige. Mussolini did not allow this
to pass. On March 3 he denied the Austrian accusa-
tions, catalogued the benefits conferred on the new
Alpine regions by Italy and once more emphasised the
inviolability of the Brenner. “ This is the last time
I shall speak on this theme,” said Mussolini. “ Next
time I shall let acts do the speaking.” He insisted that
the Austrian manifestations were unjustified and pro-
vocative, and declared that the Fascist Government
had adopted in the Province of Bolzano the same
policy as in the ninety-two other Provinces of the
realm, and that Bolzano shared with them the same
rights and duties.” “ It is time to say that aU further
Brenner manifestations are useless and hurtful. As
far as lies in our power we wish to be friends of the
German world, but on condition that our own security
is not even vaguely placed in question. Today we
make it known to the Tyrolese, to the Austrians and
to the world that all Italy, with her dead and her
living, stands at the Brenner.”

It is typical of Mussolini’s conduct of foreign rela-
tions that when need be he clarifies any given situation
as far as Italy’s attitude is concerned with almost
brutal frankness. After the shock of such declaration
had died down, then, with both parties knowing
where each stands, he re-establishes friendship and
paves the way for a collaborative amelioration of

S55

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

reciprocal interests. This was the case with the Tyro-
lese agitation. By July the Italo-Austrian trouble had
blown over, and today — after further minor breezes —
the two countries are co-operating for the assurance
of an independent Austria which in its turn is one
of Italy’s best guarantees for the security of the
Brenner,

During 1928 a triangle of treaties of friendship
which guaranteed peace in the Eastern Mediterranean
was engineered by Mussolini among the countries
whose interests had hitherto been considered irrecon-
cilable- — Italy, Greece and Turkey. During the au-
tumn of 1928 the Italo-Greece treaty was concluded,
followed by a similar treaty with Turkey at the end
of the year. The subsequent treaty of friendship be-
tween Turkey and Greece completed a compact bond
of mutual agreements of great importance for peace
in Eastern Europe and for the preservation of Italy’s
commercial interests and traditional policy in the
Eastern Mediterranean. This reassuring triangle of
agreements marks one of Mussolini’s greatest diplo-
matic successes.

One matter ruffled Italian foreign affairs in 1928.
It took the form of a Press campaign against the
policy of Lord Strickland in Malta. The Italians
accused him of setting out to destroy “ Malta’s
spiritual patrimony — its religion and the Italian lan-
guage,” some of the papers heaping vulgar abuse on
all British schemes on the island directed towards the
establishment of schools, the development of the
Anglican Church and the adjustment of language
anomalies. The Government Press argued that the
island’s proxinuty to Italy gave her a special right
and interest in safeguarding the culture of the Maltese,
256

AN I}(TEmATIO:t(AL POWER

whom they claimed to have ties of blood and language
with themselves.

But the real interest of the Government was on
bigger international issues than the Malta squabble :
1929 and the beginning of 1930 saw Fascist Italy taking
an important part at The Hague Conference on the
Dawes Plan, with its political ramifications touching
the problems of reparations and war debts, France,
the Ruhr, and the Locarno guarantees — issues which
brought Fascist Italy on an equal footing ever closer
into the deliberation of the Great Powers. Italy’s
helpful attitude to Austria during The Hague decisions
on Austria’s reparation debts was followed by a formal
visit of thanks made by the Austrian chancellor to
Rome.

In the same year Italy was invited with France to
complete the 1929 Washington Naval Accord already
subscribed to by the United States and Great Britain.
Italy then produced the formula of “ equality of
rights and equality of duties ” — and plunged once
more into negotiations with France for the solution of
the naval and disarmament question in particular and
the settlement of the “ totalarity ” of Italo-French
questions in general. In aU these naval and kindred
discussions Mussolini maintained that the real solu-
tion of what was then recognised as part of the whole
world economic crisis lay in the creation of a feeling
of mutual trust among nations.

The disarmament question dominated 1930, and
the inconclusive discussions and their reactions roused
Mussolini to declare in a “ Message to the Fascist
Party ” on October 27, 1930 ; “ Fascist Italy arms
because everyone arms. It will disarm if everyone
disarms. . . . Let it be clear that we arm for defence

257

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

and not for attack. Fascist Italy will never take the
initiative in war. Our actual policy of treaty revision
is directed towards avoiding war. Revision is not
only a thing of prevailing Italian interest ; it is of
Europeanj of world interest. This possibility of revi-
sion is contained in the Pact of the League of Nations
itself. Who therefore violates the Pact of the League ?
Those at Geneva who have created and wish to per-
petuate two categories of States ; the armed and the
unarmed.” Mussolini at this time indicated that it
was “ only towards the East that growing Italy could
make pacific expansion ” — a sentiment which ex-
plained Italy’s vital interest in the Danubian States.
So that when these States were moving towards alli-
ances and treaties in the play of Great Powers other
than Italian, aU people concerned were reminded by
Mussolini : “ We are hard on enemies ; but with
friends we march to the end.”

The main cause of firiction was still caused by the
rubbing of the conflicting policies and interests of
Italy and France. In February 1931 Mr. Henderson
as Foreign Minister of the British Labom Government,
accompanied by the Labour First Lord of the Admir-
alty and some Foreign Office experts made a special
visit to Paris and Rome in order to try and resolve at
least the Franco-Italian naval differences — differences
which circled round the Italian parity claims, for that
of course was what Mussolini’s formula of “ willingness
to disarm at whatever figure so long as not exceeded by
any other Continental Power ” resolved itself into.

The main object of the British mission was to obtain
the adherence of France and Italy to the Three-Power
Naval Pact signed in 1930 at London by Britain, the
United States and Japan — an agreement complemen-

AN INTERNATIONAL POWER
tary to the Washington Treaty. The Rome talks ended
on February 27 with a dramatic sitting in the British
Embassy with Mussolini present, when agreement was
reached with the Duce and a midnight telephone call
jfrom the Embassy to the Qjiai d’Orsay secured the
adhesion also of the French Government. But this
apparently happy conclusion of a major Franco-
Italian quarrel was doomed to be negatived. Dis-
illusionment, which we have seen in course of tliis
history to enter like a spectre at all crucial phases of
Italo-French relations, once more chilled Italian hopes.

The Rome agreement was announed in the French
and Italian Chambers and a reunion was fixed in
London to elaborate the final text. By the end of the
first London session the Italian and the British Govern-
ments were taken aback to learn that France put a
substantially different interpretation on the basis of
the agreement reached in Rome. The Italian Gover-
ment spoke of its “ surprise, delusion and justified
sense of bitterness.” While stiU hopeful, the Italian
Government took occasion however to reaffirm its be-
lief that “ a Germany politically tranquil and econo-
mically healed ” was an element “ not only useful
but indeed indispensable for the peace and stability
of Europe.”

Seeing the danger of this international drift while
the world crisis was closing still tighter its grip on the
moral of aU peoples, Mussolini during the winter of
1931-1932 opened what may be called a world cam-
paign. In speeches, by radio broadcast, and in Press
articles he warned civilisation of the chaos which
threatened it, and appealed to all responsible nations
to confront realities in co-operation and common
sense. At an enormous open-air meeting in Naples on

259

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD ROWER

October 25, 1931, Mussolini pointed to the problems
of reparations and war debts, armament inequalities,
certain clauses of the Peace treaties, and a crippled
capitalist system as the obstacles to world equilibrium ;
and he showed that the revision of these things would,
in the name of justice, be the aim of the Fascist Party
in the future. He defined the world crisis as not
merely economic but as above all spiritual and moral.
And then in the form of three rhetorical questions he
announced his policy “ with which real peace would
be served.”

“ How can we say,” he asked, “ that there is legal
equality, when on one hand there are nations armed
to the teeth and on the other there are nations con-
demned to remain helpless ?

“ How can one speak of European reconstruction if
some of the clauses of some of the Peace treaties —
which have pushed the world on to the brink of
material disaster and moral desperation — are not
modified ?

“ How long will it be before mankind reaHses that
something has broken down in the modem economic
machine,” and that its creaking axles must be over-'
hauled ?

He announced that the “just answers” to these
points would be the basis of the Fascist policy.

In November 1931 Mussolini sent Grandi to Wash-
ington with a plea for world collaboration and with a
mandate to discuss world problems “ with the sky as
the limit.” New Year 1932 he opened with a broad-
cast nlea for a common confrontation of the crisis, and
on 1932, as a prelude to the Lausanne

Reparations Conference, he published in the Popolo
dl Italia a plea for a radical cancellation of reparations.

AN INTERNATIONAL POWER

This advocacy of a clean-slate policy in Europe was
followed the next day by another article appealing
to the United States to play her part by making a
“ gesture worthy of civilisation ” by renouncing war
debts. But this suggested act of renunciation on
America’s part was to be dependent on the behaviour
of Europe. “ There is only one way out of this
statistical situation. It must begin with a betterment
of feeling among the European States in their reci-
procal positions of debtors and creditors. With this
reached, and in face of such an act of goodwill by all
Europe — which through reciprocal forgiveness showed
that it had overcome the distinction between the con-
queror and conquered, the United States would cer-
tainly not have the courage to insist. America would
refuse to appear in the history of humanity as the only,
the unique, the persistent and worldly profiteer of the
Great War. None of the Americans wish to be likened
unto Shylock clamouring for his pound of flesh.
There are also material reasons to close this account
written in blood. . . . The world has need of the
United States, but the United States has more than
ever need of Europe and the world. The alarm-bells
of reality ring on both shores of the Atlantic.”

Mussolini having thus made a bid for world leader-
ship in pohtical thought, his representative at Geneva
opened his speech at the first plenary meeting of the
Geneva Disarmament Conference on February lo,
1932, with the words : “ Our task is to justify justice,
not to justify force.” By this time Mussolini developed
a policy which openly considered disarmament, finan-
cial obhgations and the economic situation as three
sides of the one problem of world depression.

The Fascist Grand Council demanded that responsl-

s6t

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

bility for the disarmament and general world
impasse should be fixed — the presumption being that
France was the culprit. The irresolution of the inter-
national conferences and of Geneva was condemned
and the demand for world confidence and an ” inter-
national civic sense ” repeated.

As a means of fortifying Italy against the general
economic depression of this period the Ministry of
Corporations was dovetailed into Foreign Affairs in a
co-ordinated defence against tariff walls and in an
active co-operating policy of pushing new commercial
treaties, extending from Peru to Russia, with special
interest in the autonomy of the Danubian States.
Treaties with the Arab States bordering the Red Sea
were also concluded for the benefit of Italy’s Eritrean
colonial interests, supplementary to the Italian 1928
agreement with Abyssinia.

Speaking at this time in the Chamber, Grandi re-
opened the Mandates question. He deplored Italy’s
small part in the general distribution that followed
the Peace treaties, saying that while Italy invoked
international justice for everyone else, the Italian
nation could not exclude herself. He concluded :
“ Italy intends to assure a better tomorrow for her
sons.” The rest of 1932 continued with MussoUni
trying to rouse the world in general and France in
particular to a “ new mentality,” In July, Air Minis-
ter Balbo went to Geneva as leader of the Italian Dis-
armament Conference delegation. His disposition
could not tolerate the diplomatic protocol methods of
the League or the Conference’s effort to reduce the
efficacy of aerial armaments. On his return he pub-
lished in the Popolo dl Italia an article denouncing the
behaviour of Great Britain, France and the United
sSg

AN INTERNATIONAL POWER

States at the Conference, virtually accusing these
countries of poUtical hypocrisy, dishonesty and bad
faith.

By October 1932 a new factor to be reckoned with
began to loom over Europe — the steady increase of the
National-Socialist movement under Hitler in Germany.
Heretofore the expressions of Mussolini’s policy with
regard to Germany had been accepted as more or less
academic expositions of political ideals, or possibly as
a kind of bogey with which to shake France into
thinking more seriously of Italy’s possible reactions to
France’s rebuffs. But with Hitler rousing Germany
into a nation clamouring for rectification of her
Versailles position the attitude of Mussolini became
vested with immediate reality.

It was seen that Mussolini was no opportunist
champion of Germany, but that he was the leader of
a self-reliant country which approved of Germany’s
effort to help herself towards the revision which
Mussolini had always held to be necessary for Euro-
pean peace. Did it mean that Fascist Italy would join
with Fascist Germany and throw down a gaundet to
France and her Litde Entente allies of Poland,
Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia ? Mussolini’s belief in
Peace treaty revision and armament equality rights
had been too well and too fully acclaimed by Musso-
lini himself for France to have any illusions concerning
where combined Italo-Germanic action would or could
lead.

On October 23, 1932, Mussohni spoke on that point
before an open-air crowd of some one hundred and
fifty thousand people at Turin. He said : “ In this
frontier city which has never feared war I hereby
declare, so that everyone may hear, that Italy’s foreign

S63

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

policy is peace — a real peace which cannot be dis-
associated from justice j a peace which ought to
restore the equilibrium of Europe ; a kind of peace
that ought to have its roots in our hearts like hope and
faith.” There were some who thought, he said, that
Italy’s disarmament formula was inspired by Machia-
vellianism. “ There is a simple way of testing it,” he
added, — “ try it.” As for Germany’s demand for
juridical parity, he declared that it was fully justified
and that with safeguards the sooner it was recognised
the better.

Declarations such as these gave no assurance to
France, and tension rather tightened instead of slacken-
ing. Incidents also began to crop up again between
Italy and Yugoslavia in Dalmatia. In one anti-
Italian demonstration the mediaeval Venetian stone
lion of St. Mark at Trau was defaced. This incident
was held to symboHse the sum of all insults. The
Dante Alighieri Society once again leapt into fiery
resolutions. Counter-demonstrations were staged at
the French Embassy and at the Yugoslav Legation in
Rome ; and Mussolini took occasion in the Senate to
declare that responsibility for the vandalism could be
traced not only to those elements in Yugoslavia which
guide the policy of the State with ” a propaganda of
calunmy and hatred against Italy ” but also “ to other
elements ” — meaning of course France — always
France.

Despite these rough edges which hindered the
smooth running of Mussolini’s ideas for a united trans-
national effort to resuscitate the world he still persisted
in the hope of achieving co-operation.

Meanwhile the rise of Hitler to power in Germany
and his eventual establishment there in March 1933

AN INTERNATIONAL POWER

weakened somewhat the negotiating powers of France
vis-d-vis Italy and per contra strengthened the hand of
Italy. The reader has only to recollect the record of
Italy’s successive “ disillusionments ” with France and
the record of Italian belief in the necessity of a recon-
structed and rehabilitated Germany to understand the
position. Franco-Italian-Yugoslav tension had also
been heightened by actual gun-running incidents and
by reciprocal accusations of armament traffic in favour
of the Succession States. Added to this was the moral
sympathy of a Fascist Italy which saw a great nation
like Germany avowedly copying the Fascist form of
Government. Ignoring this opportunity to form an
anti-French bloc Mussolini devoted himself to pulling
France, Germany and Europe from pathways that
lead to war. With the tension created in Paris on
account of the revival of the Prussian spirit in Ger-
many he saw his oft repeated formula concerning the
necessity of treaty revision and juridical equality for
Germany change almost overnight from a political
belief to a critical issue. He at once began to use his
Fascist influence to recall Swastika-excited Germany
to a sense of responsibility. In an article contributed
to the Berliner Boersen-Courier, of March 5, 1933, he
wrote :

Fascist Italy has declared that the time has come to pass
from Armistice to Peace. The Armistice has lasted fifteen
years and, like ^LLl armistices, it confronts us with the
dilemma, simple but terrible, — either to re-take up arms or
conclude peace. The fact that many men, whose nerves
have become unstrung with the crisis, are not horrified at
the thought of a new war is evidence of the profound dis-
quietude produced in human hearts by this Armistice
which has lasted too long. It is thus that hope becoiiies

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

desperation. But let it be remembered that a state of mind
so catastrophic renders those who are at the head of States
responsible before God, Humanity and History.

Passing immediately on to a more effective field
than Press appeals, he drafted his Four Power Pact,
which he handed to Mr. MacDonald after his arrival
at the seadrome of Ostia on March i8, 1933. This
Pact proposing the co-operation of the Four Great
Western Powers of Europe opened a new chapter
in the international negotiations for world settle-
ment.

Doubts about readjustment of national interests,
fears concerning the revision of treaties and of a
Germany re-armed led to a succession of proposals
and counter-proposals by the Powers concerned —
each proposal meaning some variation in the original
text, with consequent new delays. France had to be
sure that she was not subscribing to a document which
would put her in a position to suffer from a possibly
inimicable majority decision and that the interests of
her Little Entente Allies would not suffer. Italy had
to be certEiin that the Germans would not be given
any chance to prove a cuckoo in the nest. Hitlerite
Germany feared to compromise by diplomacy that
which it looked like being able to demand by methods
more belligerently direct. Britain had to safeguard
herself against new commitments.

During this phase of diplomatic exchanges the
world Press, kept in the dark, obfuscated public
opinion by guessing wildly on the contents and scope
of the proposed Pact, speculation ranging from the
abolition of the Polish Corridor to restoration of
Tanganyika ! On July 15, however, the Four-Power
266

AN INTERNATIONAL POWER

Pact, as amended, as signed by Mussolini and the
Ambassadors of Great Britain, France and Ger-
many.

The document consists of a Preamble and six
articles. The preamble talks of the necessity of con-
solidating peace and confidence in Europe and recalls
the obligations of the League, the Locarno Pact, the
Kellog Peace Pact, and the League Covenant. In
Artical One the Four Western Powers undertake
“ effective co-operation ” for keeping the peace.
Article Two provides for the examination within the
framework of the League, of Articles lo, i6 and 19 of
the Covenant. Article Three contains an undertaking
that the Four Powers will make every effort towards
assuring the success of the Disarmament Conference ;
and in Article Four they affirm their desire to consult
together on economic questions common to Europe.
Article Five gives the Pact a ten-year duration, with
provisions for renewal ; and Article Six concerns
ratification. The import of Articles 10, 16 and 19
of the League Covenant (exhumed from their twelve
years’ burial in the archives of Geneva and enshrined
in the new Pact) is best described in the British
Foreign Office Despatch sent by Sir John Simon to
the British Ambassador in Rome on June 7, 1933.
The reference reads ;

“ Article 10 emphasises the sanctity of treaties and contains
an imderstanding to preserve against external aggression
the territorial integrity of all members of the League.
Article 19 refers to the possibility of a fresh examination of
treaties which have become inapplicable, and of inter-
national conditions whose continuance might endanger the
peace of the world. It is manifest that Articles 10 and 19
alike involve the repudiation of interference by viplence^nd

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

provide a code by means of which treaty rights should be
observed and respected, while provision is made in appro-
priate cases for their peaceful adjustment,” [Article i6
concerns the coercive measures to be taken by the League of
Nations in the event of any member-Nation violating the
Covenant.] Sir John Simon’s Despatch continues ; “ I will
draw Your Excellency’s attention to the fact that alike in
respect of Articles lo, i6 and 19, the Agreement (the Four
Power Pact), while contemplating quadrilateral examination
in respect of methods and procedure, is expressly stated to
be without prejudice to decisions which can only be taken
by the regular organs of the League of Nations.”

From tills it can be seen that the Pact in its final
form is one of pious aspirations all carefully chained
to the already existing machinery of Geneva.

On the same day as that on which the Pact was
initialled Mussolini dedicated to it a speech in the
Senate, emphasising that it was the spirit much more
than its substance that mattered, the difference be-
tween the first and final texts being of secondary
importance. He announced that not only were the
four great Western nations of Europe now in colla-
boration, but that the Pact provided for " the idea of
collaboration with all other States, great and small,
European and extra-European ; and in particular
with the United States, without whose valid and prac-
tical contribution no stable and constructive work for
the political pacification and economic restoration of
the world is possible.” He insisted that the Pact was
directed against no one.

Mussolini pointed out that, thanks to the Pact,
Italo-French relations had now entered on a new era
of settlement and agreement, and that Franco-German
relations would be transformed. The Pact, he in-
sisted, was a synthesis of the League of Nations, a
s68

AN INTERNATIONAL POWER

revival of the spirit of Locarno with the real funda-
mental aim and object of restoring international con-
fidence and goodwill. In conclusion he declared that
the spirit of the Pact put an end to the post-war chapter
of history and opened another page, and prophesied
that its terms “ would be greeted with great satisfac-
tion by the multitudes of all nations who, more distant
from artifice and nearer to life, feel intuitively the
moral import of events which may be called historic.”

The Pact — “ The Pact of Rome ” — was hailed as
a supreme triumph for peace and for Mussolini as the
fabricator of that peace. It was claimed that he had
made Fascist Italy a leader “in a new world-empire
of thought.”

The world, however, was not allowed much time to
contemplate this claim. The persistently aggressive
behaviour of Hitlerite Germany during the summer
and autumn of 1933 raised new problems for Europe
in general and for Fascist Italy in particular. The
Nazi persecution of the Jews shocked the world. The
Nazi demonstrations and incidents on the frontiers of
Denmark, France, Poland and Austria ; and the
Nazi iucursions into the Saare, Alsace and the Tyrol,
alarmed Europe. In June 1933, Mussohni, who en-
joyed the goodwill of Germany for reasons already
expounded in this book, used his special position to
call Germany to its senses. But at the same time he
did not credit all the alarmist reports published abroad.
In Rome he received the Chief Rabbi of the Italian
Jews, and in expressing his sympathy with their fellows
in Germany he promised to use what influence he
could on their behalf.

The physical assertion of the Nazi Anschluss policy
against the will of the Vienna Government, with riots

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

and bloodshed during August 1933 at the Innsbruck
vestibule of the Brenner Pass, brought the danger
point very near to Italy. Nevertheless, still persuaded
that she could count on her good relations with
Germany to check excesses, propaganda and threats,
Italy in August 1933 stood outside Allied diplomatic
protests. But as the autumn wore on it became
apparent that Mussolini, in encouraging a German
imitation of Fascist forms, saw arise not real Fascism
but a Frankenstein creation. Hitler had tried to do
in eleven weeks what had taken Mussolini eleven years.
It was shown that National-Socialism was not Fascism.

At one stroke the Nazis appeared to justify France’s
whole post-war policy, so often condemned by Italy,
Britain and others. The disarmament question ac-
quired new values.

In this sudden whirlpool Mussolini never let go his
friendship with Germany nor his faith in Germany’s
eventual retirrn to equilibrium ; but he qualified his
attitude with open and avowed adhesion to the
Austria of Dollfuss. In the Heimwehr he beheved he
saw a guarantee of Austrian independence, but that
Heimwehr guarantee was only valid under a regime
j empowered above parliament. Italy in September
1933 therefore sympathised with the creation of a
Fascist system of rule in Austria.

The enemies of Mussolini and of Fascism were quick,
during the latter months of 1933, to confuse the issue
by lumping German National-Socialism and Italian
Fascism under the one title of Fascism, By means of
this fallacy they sought to condemn Italian Fascism
by citing German Nazi anti-Jewish atrocities.

Leaving time to rectify this obvious trick on world
opinion, Mussolini in September 1933 joined with
zyo

AN INTERNATIONAL POWER

Great Britain and France in fortifying the economic
position of Austria and the Danubian States. And in
that month he raised Bolzano to the status of a garrison
town for the defence of the Brenner.

Behind these immediate moves stood the Four-Power
Pact. Mussolini never lost sight of that. As the Fas-
cist Press has surmised, he is waiting for a lull in the
swirling emotions of present-day Europe to put that
collaborative treaty to the test, and to reassert leader-
ship in the ways of international reason.

On September 2, 1933, Fascist Italy concluded a
Pact of Friendship and Non-aggression with Soviet
Russia. Mussolini in a Press article explained that
this was to dispel the idea that the Four- Power Pact
was intended to isolate Russia. He wrote : “ The
Four-Power Pact eliminates the danger of blocs in
Western Europe. I am hoping, as far as Italy is
concerned, that by this Pact with Russia I have been
able to attain the same result in Eastern Europe and
Western Asia.”

CHAPTER XXVIII

PEACE AND POLEMICS WITH THE CHURCH
(1927-1933)

The “ Roman Question ” ended. The Lateran Treaties and Concordat,
Mussolini on Christian Rome. Cavour's Dream Fulfilled. The Rope
comes out. Savoy. Education Qjiarrel. “ Catholic Action ” Accused.
Polemics and Deadlock. Terms of Settlement.

W ITH the way prepared during 1925-1927, the
Holy See and the Fascist State in 1928 began a
mild and unofficial flirtation. Overtures for a settle-
ment of the Roman Question, which had baffled all
Premiers and Popes since 1870, were quietly opened
through private channels. Everything was secret.
Vague rumours escaped only to be firmly denied.
Success depended on keeping the fingers of the public
out of the pie. By 1929 Mussolini personally entered
into the negotiations ; and on February 7, 1929,
Cardinal Secretary of State Gasparri inforined the
Diplomatic Corps to the Holy See that agreement had
been reached and a Concordat drafted. The quarrel
between the Curia and the House of Savoy was ended.
On February 1 1 , Capo del Governo Mussolini for Italy and
Cardinal Gasparri for tthe Holy See signed a Political
Treaty, a Financial Convention and a Concordat,
The Political Treaty established the absolute sover-
eignty of the Pope over that defined area now known
as the State of the Vatican City, which of course in-
cludes the Basilica of St. Peter’s. Extra-territoriality
was also guaranteed to other ecclesiastical buildings
and palaces in Rome and at Castel Gandolfo, The
272

THE CHURCH

First Article of the Statute (which we last met with
on page 12) declaring the Catholic Apostolic Ro-
man Religion the religion of the State, was repeated.
Other rehgions, instead of being “ tolerated ” now
became “ admitted.” The Church recognised the
Kingdom of Italy and the House of Savoy. It also
acknowledged Rome as the Capital of Italy. This
reciprocal recognition of absolute and complete
sovereignty was based on the formal abrogation of the
Law of Guarantees and the equally formal declaration
that the “ Roman Question ” was definitely and irre-
vocably solved^

..The Financial Convention liquidated Italy’s debt to
the Holy See, a debt which represented the self-
imposed indemnity arising out of the events of 1870.
The sum amounted to 750,000,000 lire in cash and
one billion lire worth of Italian Government Stock/

4 The Concordat provides facilitations for amicable
co-operation in the discussion and settlement of all
relations between the Italian and the Ecclesiastical au-
thorities. It lays down guiding principles for eventual
legislation concerning marriage and education. It is
in a sense the vehicle for arbitration on whatsoever
points may arise at issue between the signatories.*

It win be noticed that in writing of the Pohtical
Treaty and the Financial Convention I have used the
past tense and I have used the present for the Con-
cordat. The relative nature of the documents may
be gauged by that fact. The Treaty and Convention
have passed into history ; the Concordat is a document
stiU quick with possibilities — although the Church has
asserted that the lives of the three documents hang
together. This assertion was brought out during the
storm which rose around the whole settlement shortly

" 273

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

after its solemn conclusion at the Lateran Palace on
the historic February day of 1929.

The first gale to thrash the smooth waters of the
Roman settlement came with Mussolini’s first speech
on the conciliation. He spoke for three hours to the
Chamber. His speech was an exhaustive survey of the
history of the Church and Christianity and of their
combined relations to the history of Rome. But
Mussolini’s narrative was of the earth earthy. With
ruthless frankness he expounded his point of view.
And his point of view was Government’s point of view.
Among other things he said ; “ Italy has a singular
privilege of which we are proud, — ^that of being the
sole European nation which is the seat of a universal
religion. That religion was bom in Palestine, but it
became Catholic in Rome. If it had been confined to
Palestine it would very probably have remained one
of those many sects which flourished in that ardent
atmosphere — and very probably it would have burned
itself out, leaving no trace,”

From this he continued : “ Christianity found fav-
ourable surroundings in Rome. It found it above aU
in the lassitude of the ruling classes and consular
families which in the time of Augustus had become
tired, gross and sterile, and it found it in the seething
anthill of Levantine humanity which distressed the
social subsoil of Rome — people for whom the Sermon
on the Mount opened horizons of revolt and revindica-
tion. Among the precursors of Christianity were
Virgil and Caesar.”

This argument of course is neither new nor novel,
but it was not expected that it would be the topic
chosen for polemical expansion on that particular occa-
sion and moment. Rome was sacred, Mussolini went

THE CHURCH

on, not only because it was the capital of the Empire
and the cradle of Catholicism, but “ because it was
the resting-place of the unknown Soldier,” and because
“ on the Gampidoglio there is an altar which com-
memorates the fallen of our Fascist Revolution.” That
brought him to his great point : “ The Fascist State
fully revindicates its ethical character : it is Catholic,
but it is Fascist. It is above all exclusively, essentially
Fascist. Catholicism integrates it. That we openly
declare. But let no one think, under specious philo-
sophy or metaphysics, of changing the cards now laid
on the table.”

Mussolini recalled the story of Gavour and the ohve
branch, and in token of fulfilment of Cavour’s dream
of the end of Risorgimento strife with peace between
State and Church, and in accordance with Mussolini’s
Chamber speech, an olive branch worked in bronze,
as noted at the end of Chapter II., was placed on
Cavour’s grave at Santena in Piedmont. A Roman
oak was planted by the tomb,

Mussolini’s speech, followed by another one in the
Senate, was the prelude to an exchange of utterances
by Pius XI. and Mussolini. Neither side minced
matters. Conflicting principles on the education of
youth were already blatantly irreconcilable. It was
feared that the Lateran Treaty and Concordat would
not be ratified. However, the storm passed and the
agreements were duly completed in June 1929.

A visible popular proof that the Roman Question
was ended was given by the Pope on July 25, 1929.
On that day the “ Bronze Doors ” of the Vatican,
which had remained half-closed since 1870, were
thrown wide open by the Swiss Guards ; and Pope
Pius XI., surrounded by the full and picturesque

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

glories of the Pontifical Court, passed in processional
form out of the Vatican, maHng a circuit of St. Peter’s
Square, blessing the assembled multitude in the open
air of Rome, and then returning within. The liberty
of the Pontiffs was thus symbolised. The theory of
imprisonment in the Vatican passed into history.

On the part of the House of Savoy, King Victor
Emmanuel and Queen Elena, accompanied by Foreign
Minister Grandi, paid a State visit to the Pope on
December 5, 1929. Quirinal and Vatican met and
were reconciled.

But there were stiU storms ahead. Early in 1930
the inevitable conflict over education broke out afresh.
It centred round the activities of the “ Catholic
Action,” an institution which developed lines of
contact with the youth of Italy through various
organisations : The Catholic Young Men’s Society,
the Catholic Yotmg Women’s Society, the Catholic
Educational Board, the Public Morals Federation, the
University Students’ Federation. It also organised an
economic and social association for the adult working
classes. In connection with these the Catholic Action
had Cathohc Boy Scouts and clubs. Mussolini
had already countered the Scout movement with his
Blackshirt Avanguardisti and Balilla boys’ units.

« Mussolini had and has his own ideas on the upbring-
ing of children. To him and to Fascism the State
comes before the Church in these matters ; and as
for the family, it is the State and nol; the Church
which must primarily influence its spirit^ The Pope
intervened against Mussolini’s plans with a weighty
Encyclical, and on the Fascist side the oflicial pub-
lishing house of the Party issued two volumes ; Render
unto Caesar and The Fascist State ; Church and School,
1^76

THE CHURCH

which pursued still further the attack against the
authority of the Church. The Holy Office rose in
wrath and placed both books on the Index.

For the Church, education was the key to control.
For the Fascists, it was the key to existence.

The discussion between the two irreconcilable
absolutist conceptions of education continued until
the summer months of 1931, when it then flared up
into a serious dispute. In May of that year the
Fascist trade union paper, II Lavoro Fascista, published
“ revelations ” alleging that the Catholic Action was
clandestinely developing a programme hostile to the
Fascist State. In short, that it was reorganising the
old pre-Fascist Catholic trade unions, with the idea
of resuscitating the Popular Party in readiness to as-
sume the reins of Government. Although the counter-
revolutionary allegations were not taken seriously,
there was sufficient in the story to cause violent Fascist
reaction.

The Government closed several of the Catholic
clubs under the aegis of the Catholic Action in Rome,
and the Prefects were instructed to close Catholic
clubs in the Provinces. Blackshirt demonstrations
were held and several acts of aggression against church
property were committed. By this time the accusa-
tions against the Catholic Action included the old one
of undue interference in the education of Itahan youth.
The Pope demanded that the Italian Government
should make a formal “ deploration ” for the excesses
reported, and that it should give assurances “ of future
good behaviour,” and that it should re-open the clubs
— aU as preliminaries to discussing the scope of the
Catholic Action aims and activities.

The Fascist Government reiected these terms and in

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

turn demanded the exercise of the arbitration clause
of the Concordat for a re-discussion, of the definition of
clause 43 of the same instrument — the clause which
defines the scope of the Catholic Action.

On these issues a deadlock ensued ; and after a hot
summer of protests, proclamations, propaganda and
general pother, secret negotiations were begun for
the resolution of this post- Concordat quarrel. By
September 1931 terms were agreed upon which
amounted to this ; (i) the Catholic Action was not to
mix itself up with politics, and it was to adopt the
Italian flag ; (2) the Catholic Action was not to

organise any association of a trade union (syndical)
nature, but would co-operate with the existing Fascist
Syndicates ; (3) no person was to be appointed to
director’s office in the Catholic Action who belonged
to a Party adverse to Fascism ; and (4) the youths’
clubs of the Catholic Action were to change their
name and character. They were to confine them-
selves to works of religious and not of physical or
general education.

Both sides openly declared themselves contented and
discussions as to who had “ won ” were discouraged.

Since 1931 the relations between Church and State
have continued on the best of terms, special evidence
of mutual goodwill on the spiritual side and reciprocal
help on the material side being provided by the co-
operation exercised for the success of the Extra-
ordinary Holy Year proclaimed on April i, 1933, in
commemoration of the Nineteenth Centenary of the
Redemption.

During 1932, Fascist and Church authorities worked
together without friction for the advancement of the
Catholic religion in Italy — the Government at the
s 78

THE CHURCH

same time safeguarding the exercise and interests of
the other faiths. On September 7, 1933, seven
thousand Avanguardisti and Balilla Fascists, from Italy
and from abroad, attended Pontifical Mass in St.
Peter’s and were thereafter assembled in the Vatican
to receive the Benediction of Pius XI.

The Lateran Concordat really amounts to a deal
in futures. Its present-day cohesion, despite all the
occasional excursions and alarums which we have
seen, depends on the personahties of its two architects,
Benito Mussolini and Achille Ratti, Pius XL

To Mussolini’s mind, according to my reading of
ids utterances on the Christian religion in general and
Roman Catholicism in particular, Christ is not a token
of the redemption of mankind so much as a symbol
of the destiny of Rome : Roma Genetrix ; a Lux Mundi
of the Forums. The Pontifex Maximus is not the in-
heritor but the trustee of his imperial title, the pre-
destined perpetuator of the universal idea of Rome — ■
Latin Rome.

“ Christ, by being born, proves to us that the author-
ity of the Roman Empire was just. Christ, by dying,
confirmed the jurisdiction of the Roman Empire over
all mankind.” “ The Roman Emphe was helped by
miracles, and was therefore willed by God.” “ The
Romans, in bringing the world into subjection, aimed
at the good of the State, and therefore at the ends of
Right.” These words were written by Dante. They
are quoted from his “ Monarchia” which argues the
authority of the Empire as against'that of the Church,
and postulates that the Roman people assumed the
dignity of Empire by divine destiny and right. Here^

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

are sentiments which might have been written by
Mussolini today.

»To Pius XI Fascism is not a doctrine but a guar-
antee of order against Bolshevism, a God-sent instru-
ment which stemmed Communist atheism, which
checked agnosticism in the schools and drove out
Masonic disbelief in the authority of the Popes*

•It would be difficult to find a parallel in history
where two heads of States so profoundly disagreed
with each other’s essential credos and nevertheless
managed to frame a Concordat based on different
beliefs derived from these credos*

A future Duce who, as a practising Catholic, bows
to the headship of his Church, or a future Pope who
has no prepossessions about Bolshevism, will alter the
course of influences and relations.

In this respect the future favours the Vatican, not
necessarily to the diminution of Mussolini’s idea
of a imiversal Latin Rome, but certainly in matters
touching education, family life and the exercise of
the non-Catholic cults.

s8o

CHAPTER XXIX

COMPLETION OF THE NEW ORDER—

AND BEYOND

Prestige, Fascists in other lands. Facing World Crisis. Financial Situ-
ation. Industrial Measures. Fascist Grand Council Statute. Election
System. Fascist Plebiscite. First Blackshirt Parliament. Classic Re-
invocations. Virgil^ Dante and Caesar reinvoked. Development of the
“ Universal Idea.'’ Tenth Anniversary Classicism. Augustan Peace.
First Universal Appeal Committee formed for World Action.

O N the internal constructive side of the rapidly
consolidating State, the period from 1927 on-
wards was identified with a remarkable series of laws
concerning public health, land reclamation, agricul-
tural development. Party reforms and Corporate
State experiments. Measures to safeguard Italian
finances and commerce against the assaults of world
depression then moving to its apex were also taken.
These matters were accompanied by a significant in-
tensification of archaeological clearances, especially
in Rome ; by the celebration on an international scale
of the anniversaries of the statesmen, poets and pro-
phets of the Imperial era, and by the encouragement
of international conferences in the Italian capital,
dealing with everything and anything — a sequence of
events which pointed to the conscious development of
the idea of Rome as once more a mover in world
thought. 'This in turn merged into propaganda for
the “ universality ” of Fascism.^ All things in every
department of life, intellectual, practical or theoretical,
which enhanced the prestige of Rome received un-

281

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD ROWER

failingly full measure of encouragement and publicity
from the Government.

Italians abroad, even if they had changed their
citizenship, were made to feel that they were part and
parcel of the Fascist regime in its work of racial renais-
sance. In supplement to what has been noted in
Chapter XXV concerning] emigration, it has to be
noted that latter-day Fascism continues to develop
the position of overseas Italians on a higher social
and cultural level. The early organisation of the
Foreign Fasci was promoted in 1928 to a Department
of State under the orders of the Ministry for Foreign
Affairs, and in 1932 a Direzione Generate degli Italiani
air Estero, was constituted to look after the growing
complexity of Fascist interests among Italians abroad
— commercial, cultural, educational, charitable and
sporting. At the beginning of 1933 there were 680
Fascist centres abroad in collaboration with the
Italian diplomatic and consular services. In 1932,
300,000 children of Italian parents attended Italian
schools organised by these centres. Throughout the
world there are forty-two “Houses of Italy” open
to Italians with the express purpose of lirddng them
to the fatherland ; and ninety-two chairs and
lectureships in Italian language and literature have
been founded abroad to re-awaken foreigners to the
culture which Italy may offer.

The steps already taken by the Fascist Government
for the recovery of its internal financial and economic
position now proved a sure foundation for special
fortifications erected to protect Italy from the rising
attacks of the world economic crisis, whose impinge-
ments were first felt with special force in 1930. These,
what may be called pre-crisis measures, can be sum-
552

THE MEW ORDER

marised as a gradual reduction of taxation, the bal-
ancing of the State Budget, a revaluation of currency,
amortisation of the National Debt, plans for the settle-
ment of the floating debt and the world debts, to-
gether with groups of commercial laws affecting
internal production. Thanks to these measures the
State Budget balance, which [vide page 190) secured
its first surplus of 417.2 million lire in 1925, rose
to a surplus of 555.1 million lire in 1928-1929. Then
the curve came downwards, the following year showing
a drop to 170.3 million lire surplus, and a deficit of
504 million lire for 1930-1931. Since this the annual
Budget has continued to move downwards on the
deficit side of the line. The 1932-1933 deficit approx-
imated 4,000 million lire. The 1933-1934 deficit is
estimated at 3,088 million. The Report of the Budget
Committee of the Chamber on the 1933-1934 Finance
Bill stated : “ In several sectors of our economy the
downward trend has been checked and we note a
tendency to improve, while the behaviour of the lira
on the world markets confirms the adequacy of our
reserves of all kinds. We conclude our task with the
positive conviction that, as far as Italy is concerned,
the bottom of the depression has been touched and
has now been passed.”

The gravity of the depression with its reactions on
national finance was confronted by Finance Minister
Jung in his Budget Speech delivered in May 1933. He
advanced the following figures : the receipts for the
current financial year, he said, would fall short of
estimates by 773 million lire, of which 565 million
were due to reduced receipts from the Customs’ duty
on wheat, a loss to the revenue but a gain to the bal-
ance of payments ; expenses would exceed estimates by

283

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

1,820 million lire, of which. 833 million were accounted
for by interest on the debt, 650 million by the railway
deficit, 278 million by the assistance to agriculture and
industry demanded by crisis conditions, and 100
million by supplementary budget appropriations.

In presenting this data and in amiouncing the Bud-
get deficit. Signor Jmig went on to say :

I fully realise what it will cost to wipe out this deficit, I
bear in mind the demands it will entail, and they cause me
no undue anxiety because : (i) the settlement of arrears is
duly provided for — the increase of 1,350 million lire in this
item appearing in the accounts for 1931-32 being due only
to the fact that credits of 1,250 million lire for public works
in relief of unemployment and of over too million for the
Genoa-SerravaUe autostrada, were entered just at the close
of that financial year ; (a) the floating debt, which on 30th
April stood at 8,389 million lire, no longer consists of those
Treasury bills which afford so sound a means of meeting
temporary needs but so dangerous a one when used to meet
longer dated liabilities. We made the experiment once, we
paid the price, we shall never make it again. The sources
to which recourse is now made entail no such danger ; (3)
the Treasury cash balance with the Bank of Italy stood at
1,81 1 million lire on 20th May, 1933 ; (4) above all the
budget of international payments balances with a favourable
margin, as is shown by the fact that notwithstanding the
insolvency of many foreign purchasers of Italian exports and
the obstacles hindering the transfer of values, the Central
Bank’s reserves have remained constant throughout the
current financial year.

The Minister then pointed out that the Government
had cut down the expenditure on defence services by
578 milhon lire. In stating that the future could be
faced with confidence he said that the key to Italy’s
financial policies was to be found “ in the nation’s un-

THE HEW ORDER

bounded confidence in its Government, — a confidence
which will not be used to monopolise savings but to
safeguard and direct them towards those forms of in-
vestment which best serve national interests.”

In condemning aU speculative activities, banking
and otherwise, he asserted that the country’s new sav-
ings, if wisely used, were adequate to meet both the
needs of the national budget and other needs conse-
quent on the settlement and readjustment of sectors of
economic activity in which the Government inter-
vened, not to support given industries or banks, but to
protect national interests at stake, the assistance being
given exclusively, he noted, out of new savings and
never out of the currency.

On monetary policies the Minister reported that,
with a gold cover to the note circulation standing at
50.76 per cent., and at 49.04 per cent, to all sight
liabilities, the technical bases for ensuring a sound
currency were provided. “ The will of the Duce that
the currency must be and must remain sound was
being carried out to the letter.”

Talking of Mussohni’s determination to maintain a
sound currency — (the policy first voiced in the Pesaro
speech of 1926 noted on page 229) — the Finance
Minister said :

I had the honour of stating this to the President of the
United States when he enquired of me into Italy’s attitude
on two of the questions the United States deem of pre-
eminent importance for the World Economic Conference —
monetary stabilisation and the return of all currencies to a
common standard which the United States cannot conceive
of as other than gold, I replied that Italy had no need to
stabilise, as she had already stabihsed on 21st December
1927, and had maintained, and intended to maintain, that

285

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

stabilisation unaltered ; and that Italy had no need to
return to a gold parity because in 1927 she had placed her
currency on a gold basis. I added that whatever other
countries might do, Italy would not deviate from the policies
laid down by the Duce, and that instead of considering
recourse to empirical and ultimately ineffectual means for
adjusting internal to world prices, she would continue to
make use of an instrument thoroughly tested out during the
past ten years, namely, her Syndical and Corporative
organisation.

This citation reflects the attitude actually main-
tained by Italy durmg the 1933 World Economic
Conference in London.

Confirming the results secured by Fascist policies
in maintaining price parities, Minister Jung gave the
House some index numbers comparing the variations
in prices of agricultural products in Italy with those
given by the Statistical Abstract of the United States
for the same products in America. On the basis
100 = 1913, the index number for wheat, expressed in
pre-war lire, stood in 1932 at 104 in Italy, against
54 to 56 in the United States, for maize at 106 against
50 to 49, for potatoes at 122 against 80, for hogs at 76
against 48.8, figures which show, he said, that in Italy
timely steps had been taken to avoid undue disparities
between agricultural and other prices.

The trade balance deficit was reduced to less than
1,500 million lire on a total turnover of 21,000 million
for 1931, and 150,000 million for 1932. From the
beginning of the world crisis until May 31, 1933, the
internal National Debt increased from 86,446 million
to 96,811 million lire. Despite that situation public
confidence in the stability and strength of the Govern-
ment not only remained firm, but increased to heights
s86

THE NEW ORDER

which may be called unprecedented in the history of
Italian internal finances. The evidence of this feeling
was particularly prominent during the Government’s
investment policy of 1932, when 4000 million lire issue
of Treasury Bonds were over-subscribed by millions of
lire a few hours after they were available to the
pubHc. Eighty per cent of these milhons subscribed
came from the small investor. The same condition
was noticeable in Government-backed development
schemes — the project for the electrification of Italian
railways, which was put on the market in July 1933,
being likewise over-subscribed at once by the small
investor, who no longer looked to speculation on the
foreign market.

Measures were taken for the purpose of support-
ing the industrial situation and of preparing Italy to
compete on the world’s markets as soon as depression
lifted. The principal step was the creation in January
1933 of ^ State-backed institution “ to give more
practical and vigorous help towards the technical,
economic, and financial reorganisation of industrial
concerns hard hit but not overthrown by the crisis, so
that these concerns may be in better efficiency at the
moment of the economic revival.” This new organisa-
tion was called the Institute for Industrial Recon-
struction.

The method to be followed by this Reconstruction
Institute was to bring indirect State aid to essential
and contributory-essential industries, and to “ demob-
ilise ” non-paying concerns so that, through liquid-
ation, money and energy could be freed for produc-
tive channels. For these purposes the Reconstruction
Institute was planned to operate in two sections : In-
dustrial Financing, andlndustrialDemobihsation, The

sSy

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

/With Party organisation revised and overhauled,
with peace concluded with the Church, and with the
popularity of the Fascist Parly recovered, the Govern-
ment prepared for new elections. For this purpose a
revolutionary change was carried out. The old terri-
torial constituencies were wholly eliminated and all
Italy was considered as one constituency. Candi-
dates no longer represented interests identified with
the life of specific districts, but instead represented
some aspect of national interest irrespective of locality.
They were no longer nominated by party election
committees throughout the provinces. The following
election machinery, which still operates the Fascist
suffrage system, was put into motion instead. The
nomination of candidates was placed in the hands of
the national trade-union Confederations of the Cor-
porative organisations. These Confederations repre-
sented — and represent — the total productive elements
of Italy. These Confederations nominate 800 candi-
dates. To that list is added a number of representa-
tives of public welfare and other institutions, all of a
national character, such as the Dante Alighieri Society.
This fist of candidates is submitted to the Grand
Fascist Council. The Grand Fascist Council draws
up the Government list from these names, reducing
the 800 to 400. This list of 400 is presented to the
electors to be accepted or rejected as one block. If
rejected, then the Grand Fascist Council supplies an-
other list of 400 names and so on until the electorate
finally chooses its group of 400. There are no other
rival candidates, either singly or in blocks, allowed in
the Fascist field .>

Having decided to go to the polls, the Fascist elec-
toral campaign, from Syracuse to the Brenner, reached

2Q0

THE MEW ORDER

its climax during March 1929. The essentially revolu-
tionary character of the campaign was patent to the
people by the absence of any opposition activities and
the consequent complete absence of that hustings’
oratory which under previous regimes had lent such
fire to election campaigns — a fire which, however, had
proved a consuming one for the old parliamentary
system.

As for the Fascist list, Mussolini pointed out to the
people that it was not men but ideas that were being
elected. One sign of the new conditions following
the conclusion of the Concordat with the Vatican
was the participation of the Church in the electoral
campaign. Not only did Church dignitaries appear
on Fascist platforms, but in the parishes the clergy
organised the Catholic vote as a solid one for Fascism.

March 24, 1929, was polling day and the public was
much interested to discover what method the Fascists
had devised for recording votes. Each elector, after
identification at his polling station, was handed two
forms externally identical when folded. Inside, one
was marked with the tricolour and the formula, “ Do
you approve of the deputies designated by the Grand
Fascist Council ? ” with underneath the printed word
“Yes.” The other form was provided with the same
question, but printed with the word “ No.” The
electors passed one by one into an enclosed booth
where they made their selection, folding and gumming
the form chosen. Leaving the rejected one in an urn
in the booth, the electors emerged and handed the
sealed form to an official, who placed it in an um on
a polling-booth table.

The results, pubhshed on March 31, 1929, exceeded
even Fascist expectations. The electors on the roll

sgi

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

Financing Section was operated by a committee nom-
inated by the Finance Minister and by the Minister of
Corporations. The capital granted to this section was
not very ranch — loo million lire. This sum was sub-
scribed by designated savings banks and national in-
surance institutions. Not only was financial help given
to industries in need, but State guarantees were also
given in cases where the maintenance of the industry
was of exceptional public interest. This latter point
was a safeguard, for instance, against increasing un-
employment.

The second section, for liquidating industries un-
profitable to themselves or to the community, was
granted an annual subvention for twenty years of
85,000,000 lire, provided by the Public Works Credit
Consortium.

Italian observers noted with satisfaction that this
new advance of State intervention at moments of crisis
was based on a financial system which avoided in-
flation, open or covert.

Throughout all the buffets of the crisis, even with
the dollar and sterling performing fantastic evolutions,
the Italian hra on October i, 1933, remained fixed
and unshaken, and the gold standard unbroken.

The internal monies available were from 1928
mainly devoted to public w'orks. In order not to
burden this narrative with a mere chronological cata-
logue of accomplishments and dates in the varied
fields of activity above indicated, I have reserved a
description of public works for the section dealing
with Fascism in Being, which shows the position as
at the present time.

In order to give sequence to the story of the gradual
development of the Corporate State from the theore-
s88

THE NEW ORDER

tical to the practical stage, we must not here omit to
record the revolutionary reform carried out in the
Italian parliamentary system. The Brst stage towards
this change was the completion of a “ New Statute of
the National Fascist Party ” in October 1929. This
Statute defined the Party as “ A Civil Mifitia at the
service of the nation with the object of realising the
greatness of the Italian people.” It further stated
“ Fascism is not merely a groupmg together of Italians
round a set programme realised and to be realised,
but it is above all a confession of faith. Unhindered
by dogmatic formahties and rigid schemes, Fascism
feels that authority lies in the possibility of its own
continual renovation.” The Statute provides for the
creation of “ a hierarchy” as a definite part. of the
F ascist Constitution. The Statute defines its hierarchic
principle as one “ without which no people can have
the discipline of strength and education, getting in-
spiration from the top, where there is a complete
vision of all the attributes which contribute to the
interests of general order.” The Statute then lays
down the “ watchwords ” of the Party as once more
“ Faith, Courage, Industry ” — to which in this case
was added “ Honesty.”

The Fascist Grand Council thus became automati-
cally a body representing the “ hierarchy of govern-
ment.” It was assumed into the fabric of the State as
a supreme deliberative body. It enjoyed an exercise
of influence over Parliament which resolved Parlia-
ment into being the executant of the Fascist Council’s
deliberations. This Statute was revised in November
1932 and the size of the Council was reduced, but its
character and functions remained and remain unim-
paired.

T s8g

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

were 9,673,049. Of these 8,663,412 voted— 8,519,559
favourably for the Fascist list. There were 135,761
contrary votes and 8092 spoiled papers. While there
is no doubt of the completeness of the Fascist organ-
isation to ensure the success of the elections in their
favour, it was obvious that the country was with
Mussolini, and that it had expressed its confidence in
his regime with a vote which can only be likened to
a national plebiscite.

On April 20, the Twenty-Eighth Italian Legislature
since the foundation of the Kingdom, and the first
under the new Fascist system, was opened in solemn
state by King Victor Emmanuel. As the Fascist State
grew in stature so did Mussolini’s energies increase.
In the spring of 1929 he held the following Ministerial
portfolios : Foreign, War, Colonial, Navy, Air, Public
Works, and Interior. These of course were in addition
to his labours as Prime Minister and Duce of the
Fascist Party. All this, however, did not mean that
he took on superhuman burdens, but that he assumed
personal responsibility, while exercising surveillance
over the activities of the respective Ministries. The
above was his record number of portfolios. On
September 12, 1929, he relinquished aU the Depart-
mental Ministries save that of the Interior. Since then
he has reassumed Foreign Affairs and is also Minister
of Corporations. The opening of the new parliament
on April 20, 1929, marks the completion of the pre-
liminary machinery of the Fascist State and the total
control of the Fascist Party over the entire fiinction-
iug of Italian parliamentary and national life. It
therefore marks the completion of this chronicle as
far as accession to power and completion of the means
for exercising power are concerned.

sgs

THE MEW ORDER

When these aims had been reached, however,
Fascism was not content to rest upon mere parhamen-
tary victories. Contemporaneously with the perfec-
tioning of power, the Fascists had been concentrat-
ing on Classic remembrance, turning their eyes to
the distant past as a source of inspiration for the
future. There began to rise over the Fascist hori-
zon the idea of a practical renaissance of Imperial
Rome.

The bi-millenary of Virgil in 1927 was a notable
starting-point for concentration on this Roman line
of thought. At Mantua, by the Virgilian grove, the
ex-Service Volunteers of the Great War voted a “ Pro-
fession of Faith in the Universality of Fascist Rome.”
This reads :

(1) We believe in the universal mission of Rome for the
salvation and greatness of human civilisation.

(2) We believe in the fatality and in the pre-fixed return
of the Roman Empire exalted by Virgil, prophesied by
Dante.

(3) We believe in the sublime law of sacrifice and heroism
affirmed in the legendary birth of Rome and repeated
throughout all time — the law which Virgil exalts in the fateful
mission of Aeneas.

(4) We believe in Roman virtue — the supreme virtue of
our kind — which is order, discipline, harmony in work, in
justice and in social peace.

(5) We believe in the Duce of Fascism — ^who has restored
to us our Roman peace in justice, discipline and work, and
has reawaJkened the soul of our race to the eternal ideals —
as the realiser of the immense Destiny of Rome where the
two sovereign powers, civil and religious, must exist for the
welfare of the world in universal action.

(6) For this faith we are ready to fight again, suffer again,
and to die if need be, and we invite all Italians to follow us.

293

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

♦ This classical spirit with its universal appeal was
encouraged by a series of international congresses in
Rome of which the most important and illuminating
was the Volta Congress held in November 1932,
when the importance and the influence of Rome as
a binding factor in European unity was emphasised
in a long series of discourses by ex-statesmen of all
nations^

We have seen in earlier chapters how Fascist Italy
grew to be a World Power in the comity of nations with
increasing influence in the practical affairs of inter-
national politics, but in this phase of exalting the
classical-universal spirit of the new Italy, Mussolini
was making his definite start towards assuming leader-
ship in world thought on the political philosophy of
government — a philosophy which for “ universal ”
purposes became more and more associated with the
eagles and institutions of Imperial Rome. Passages
from speeches by Mussolini indicate the train and
direction of his thought. On October 23, 1932, at
Turin, speaking at a great open-air meeting, he said :
“ Today with full tranquillity of conscience I say unto
you that the Twentieth Century will be the Century
of Fascism, it will be the Century of Italian potency ;
it will be the Century during which Italy will return
for the third time to be the director of human civilisa-
tion, because outside of our principles there is no
salvation for individuals, and far less for nations.”
This utterance is typical of many others.

'This reinvocation of the classical ideal and the
identification of that ideal with Fascism as a universal
panacea rose to its fullest heights in October 1932
during the celebration for the completion of the first
ten years of the Fascist regime — the Decennale. The

THE MEW ORDER

“ greatness of Rome,” not only in spiritual but in a
material sense, was then brought out by the completion
of the Imperial Way which reawakened the fragments
of the Forum to the current life of the City. The
Decennale celebrations were opened in the Augusteo
Hall in Rome — the Tomb of Augustus. They
were closed at Ravenna, by the Tomb of Dante. As
recalled in the opening chapter of this history, the
occasion was marked by the declamation of those three
great Cantos which sing of the beauty, tire agony and
the destiny of Italy and Rome. Contemporaneously
a replica of the classic statue of Julius Caesar was
erected at Rimini at the spot where tradition says that
the first Dictator addressed his Legions after crossing
the Rubicon for his March on Rome. Every news-
paper in Italy received instructions that these cele-
brations, with illustrated and descriptive articles on
their significance to the Italian race, were to be the
principal and leading feature on every “ front page ”
of the entire Press of the peninsula.

Whatever we may think of it, the profound effect of
such propaganda cannot be overestimated. Musso-
Uni enlists Northcliffean methods for direct, Fascist
ends.

In course of this history we have seen Blackshirt
conceptions of Rome emerge as

(1) The capital of Italy.

(2) The protector of the Church.

(3) The Imperial capital of Europe, and

(4) The source of world thought.

Archaeology has not been the least important of the
means employed to further these ideas. Archaeolo-
gical programmes of work with a psychological side to

S95

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD ROWER

them were prepared in May 1933 for the bi-millenary
of the Emperor Augustus. This celebration has been
fixed for 1937-1938. The greatest feature of the
programme is to be the recovery of the Ara Pacis of
Augustus. This intention can be accepted as indicat-
ing the political ideals of Mussolini. The Altar of the
Augustan Peace was the expression of the greatness
and completeness of the dominion of Roman thought
and action over the civilised world. The recovery of
these scattered fragments and their re-erection in
Rome is calculated to remind the modern world of
Rome’s aspiration to recover, in the abstract realm
of Fascist poUtico-philosophical thought, her ancient
role.

The latest example of propaganda for the univer-
sality of Rome was the institution in July 1933 of a
“ Central Council of a Committee of Action for the
Universality of Rome,” The chairman of this council
at its first meeting in the Campidoglio was the Gover-
nor of Rome and the meeting was held under Govern-
ment patronage. According to a resolution passed at
this meeting, the Council of Action proposed that it
would “ revive the spirit of ancient Rome and utilise
that spirit as a common denominator of equality for
all the countries which Rome considered, also in the
time of the Empire, to be free and independent al-
though within the orbit and organisation of Roman
civilisation.” Tliis resolution continued : “ Quite
apart from all political contingencies it would seem
that the time has arrived to lay down the basis of a
fruitfiol and continuous accord among all those who,
without altering the traditions and characteristics and
necessities of their respective nations, are disposed to
recognise in the ancient and present universality of
296

THE MW ORDER

Rome the means of these spiritual alliances which
could give to the world, still in agony and dis-
cord, its political restoration and its civil and social
strength.”

■The character of this resolution reveals the next
step in the progress of Fascism— a step calculated to
lift it from World Power to World Influence. But as
that lies with the future, my chronicle here ends.

S97

PART II

THE PHILOSOPHY AND SPIRIT OF
FASCISM

“We are not bound by any statute of
preceding Parliaments, but by the law of
Nature only, which is the only law truly
and properly to all mankind fundamental.”

Milton.

CHAPTER I
DOCTRINE

The Abstract Idea. System of Thought. Mussolini’s Exposition of
Fundamentals. His jg Points : Philosopkic, Spiritualistic, Positive,
Ethical, Religious, Historical, Anti-Individualist, Corporative, Demo-
cracy, the State, Dynamic, Role of the State, Discipline.

H aving followed the growth of Fascism through all
the weathers of political conflict let us now pass
into the undisturbed and rarefied atmosphere of
abstract thought. We have seen how “ thought and
action ” have gone hand in hand from the very be-
ginnings of the Fascist conception, even if on occasion
thought has had to mark time while action pushed
forward alone to clear the way of encumbrances for
the eventual further advance of political ideas. In the
march of events the reader must have already noted
the steady emergence of the truism that Fascism
“ besides being a system of Government is also a
system of thought.”

At the same time the reader may have observed that,
while a system of thought„Fascism has been harnessed
to no pre-stated doctrine. In his earliest Anarchist
days and in his later Socialist days we have seen
MussoHni discarding the doctrines of these political
systems in his eager search after thought — “ a revolu-
tionary questing for a creed.” And through the clash
of these first conflicts, through the cataclysm of the
war, through the depths and shallows and cross-
currents of the post-war decade we have seen that new

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creed pass from liquefied and malleable beginnings
into a tempered axe-blade rigid in the lictor’s rods,

Mussolini had been so occupied with the task of
direct action, so near to the heat of the forge, that it
was only in 1932 that he paused to reduce his political
formulas into doctrinal form — a doctrine whose every
tenet has its reference point and proof in the utter-
ances and actions of Mussolini during the past thirty
years.

It was as a contribution to the great work now
being steadily pushed to conclusion, the Enciclopedia
Italiana^ that Mussolini officially expounded the doc-
trine of Fascism.

As it is my intention to devote the following pages
to an examination of the spirit, idea and ideals of
Fascism as a politico-philosophy and social cult it is
necessary to pay close attention to its declared doc-
trine. But it would be foolish and presumptuous to
attempt any personal exposition when the author,
inspirer and fabricator of the Fascist doctrine has him-
self made an authoritative and final analysis. Let us
therefore go direct to the fount. Through tlie kindness
of Signor Mussolini and with the permission of the
Enciclopedia authorities, I am able to reproduce here
the thirteen paragraphs which encompass the funda-
mental novelties of Fascism as described by its founder
and leader :

Fundamental Ideas
Philosophic Conception.

1. 1- Like every concrete political conception, Fascism is
thought and action. It is action with an inherent doctrine
which, arising out of a given system of historic forces, is in-
serted in it and works on it ftom within. It has therefore a

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DOCTRINE

form co-related to the contingencies of time and place ; but
it has at the same time an ideal content which elevates it
into a formula of truth in the higher region of the history of
thought.

There is no way of exercising a spiritual influence on the
things of the world by means of a human will-power com-
manding the wills of others, -without first having a clear con-
ception of the particular and transient reality on which the
-will-power must act, and without also having a clear con-
ception of the universal and permanent reality in which the
particular and transient reality has its life and being. To
know men we must have a knowledge of man ; and to have
a knowledge of man we must know the reality of things and
their laws.

There can be no conception of a State which is not funda-
mentally a conception of Life. It is a philosophy or intuition,
a system of ideas which evolves itself into a system of logical
construction, or which concentrates itself in a vision or in
a faith, hut which is always, at least -virtually, an organic
conception of the world.

Spiritualised Conception.

2. Fascism would therefore not be understood in many of
its manifestations (as, for example, in its organisations of the
Party, its system of education, its discipline) were it not con-
sidered in the light of its general -view of life. A spiritualised
view.

To Fascism the world is not this material world which
appears on the surface, in which man is an indi-vidual
separated from all other men, standing by himself and sub-
ject to a natural law which instinctively impels him to lead
a life of momentary and egoistic pleasure. In Fascism man
is an indi-vidual who is the nation and the country. He is
this by a moral law which embraces and binds together
individuals and generations in an established tradition and
mission, a moral law which suppresses the instinct to lead
a life confined to a brief cycle of pleasure in order, instead,
to replace it within the orbit of duty in a superior conception

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of life, free from the limits of time and space ; a life in
which the individual by self-abnegation and by the sac-
rifice of his particular interests, even by death, realises
the entirely spiritual existence in which his value as a man
consists.

Positive Conception of Life as a Struggle.

3. It is therefore a spiritualised conception, itself also a
result of the general reaction of the Century against the
languid and materialistic positivism of the Eighteenth Cen-
tury, Anti-positivist, but positive : neither sceptical nor
agnostic, neither pessimistic nor passively optimistic, as are
in general the doctrines (all of them negative) which place
the centre of life outside of man, who by his free will can
and should create his own world for himself.

Fascism wants a man to be active and to be absorbed in
action with all his energies : it wants him to have a manly
consciousness of the difficulties that exist and to be ready
to face them. It conceives life as a struggle, thinking that
it is the duty of man to conquer that life which is really
worthy of him : creating in the first place within himself
the (physical, moral, intellectual) instrument with which to
build it.

As for the individual, so for the nation, so for mankind.
Hence the high value of culture in all its forms (art, religion,
science) and the supreme importance of education. Hence
also the essential value of labour, with which man conquers
nature and creates the human world (economic, political,
moral, intellectual).

Ethical Conception.

4. This positive conception of life is evidently an ethical
conception. And it comprises the whole reality as well as
the human activity which domineers it. No action is to be
removed from the moral sense ; nothing is to be in the world
that is divested of the importance which belongs to it in
respect of moral aims. Life, therefore, as the Fascist con-
ceives it, is serious, austere, religious ; entirely balanced in
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DOCTRINE

a world sustained by the moral and responsible forces of the
spirit. The Fascist disdains the “ easy ” life.

Religious Conception.

5. Fascism is a religious conception in which man is con-
sidered to be in the powerful grip of a superior law, with an
objective Will which transcends the particular individual and
elevates him into a fully conscious member of a spiritual
society. Anyone who has stopped short at the mere con-
sideration of opportunism in the religious policy of the
Fascist regime, has failed to understand that Fascism, be-
sides being a system of government, is also a system of
thought.

Historical and Realist Conception.

6. Fascism is an historic conception in which man could
not be what he is without being a factor in the spiritual
process to which he contributes, either in the family sphere
or in the social sphere, in the nation or in history in general
to which all nations contribute. Hence is derived the great
importance of tradition in tlie records, language, customs
and rules of human society. Man without a part in history
is nothing.

For this reason Fascism is opposed to aU the abstractions
of an individualistic character based upon materialism
typical of the Eighteenth Century ; and it is opposed to all
the Jacobin innovations and utopias. It does not believe in
the possibility of" happiness ” on earth as conceived by the
literature of the economists of the Seventeenth Century ; it
therefore spurns aU the teleological conceptions of final
causes through which, at a given period of history, a final
systematisation of the human race would take place. Such
theories only mean placing oneself outside real history and
life, which is a continual ebb and flow and process of realisa-
tions.

Politically speaking, Fascism aims at being a realistic
doctrine ; in its practice it aspires to solve only the problems
which present themselves of Aeir own accord in the process

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of history, and which of themselves find or suggest their own
solution. To have the effect of action among men, it is
necessary to enter into the process of reality and to master
the forces actually at work.

The Individual and Liberty.

7. Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception is for the
State ; it is for the individual only in so far as he coincides
with the State, universal consciousness and will of man in
his historic existence. It is opposed to the classic Liberalism
which arose out of the need of reaction against absolutism,
and which had accomplished its mission in history when the
State itself had become transformed in the popular will and
consciousness.

Liberalism denied the State in the interests of the par-
ticular individual ; Fascism reaffirms the State as the only
true expression of the individual.

And if liberty is to be the attribute of the real man, and
not of the scarecrow invented by individualistic Liberalism,
tlien Fascism is for liberty. It is for the only kind of liberty
that is serious — the liberty of the State and of the individual
in the State. Because, for the Fascist, all is comprised in the
State and nothing spiritual or human exists — much less has
any value — outside the State. In this respect Fascism is a
totalising concept, and the Fascist State — the unification and
synthesis of every value — interprets, develops and potentiates
the whole life of the people.

Conception of a Corporative State.

8. No individuals nor groups (political parties, associa-
tions, labour unions, classes) outside the State. For this
reason Fascism is opposed to Socialism, which clings rigidly
to class war in the historic evolution and ignores the unity
of the State which moulds the classes into a single, moral
and economic reality. In the same way Fascism is opposed
to the unions of the labouring classes. But within the orbit
of the State with ordinative functions, the real needs, which
gave rise to the Socialist movement and to the forming of
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DOCTRINE

labour unions, are emphatically recognised by Fascism and
are given their full expression in the Corporative System,
which conciliates every interest in the unity of the State.

Democracy.

9. Individuals form classes according to categories of
interests. They are associated according to differentiated
economical acitivities which have a common interest ; but
first and foremost they form the State. The State is not
merely either the numbers or the sum of individuals forming
the majority of a people. Fascism for this reason is opposed
to the democracy which identifies peoples with the greatest
number of individuals and reduces them to a majority level.
But if people are conceived, as they should be, qualitatively
and not quantitatively, then Fascism is democracy in its
purest form. The qualitative conception is the most coherent
and truest form and is therefore the most moral, because it
sees a people realised in the consciousness and will of the
few or even of one only ; an ideal which moves to its realisa-
tion in the consciousness and will of all. By “ all ” is meant
all who derive their justification as a nation, ethnically
speaking, from their nature and history, and who follow the
same fine of spiritual formation and development as one
single will and consciousness — not as a race nor as a
geographically determinated region, but as a progeny
that is rather the outcome of a history which perpetuates
itself; a multitude unified by an idea embodied in the
will to have power and to exist, conscious of itself and of its
personality.

Conception of the State.

10. This higher personality is truly the nation, inasmuch
as it is the State. The nation does not beget the State,
according to the decrepit nationalistic concept which was
used as a basis for the publicists of the national States in the
Nineteenth Century. On the contrary, the nation is created
by the State, which gives the people, conscious of their own
moral unity, the will, and thereby an efiective existence.

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THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

The right of a nation to its independence is derived not from
a literary and ideal consciousness of its own existence, much
less from a de facio situation more or less inert and uncon-
scious, but from an active consciousness, from an active
political will disposed to demonstrate in its right ; that is
to say, a kind of State already in its pride [in fieri) . The
State, in fact, as a universal ethical will, is the creator of
right.

Dynamic Reality.

11. The nation as a State is an ethical reality which exists
and lives in measure as it develops. A standstill is its death.
Therefore the State is not only the authority which governs
and which gives the forms of law and the worth of the
spiritual life to the individual wills, but it is also the power
which gives effect to its will in foreign matters, causing it
to be recognised and respected by demonstrating through
facts the universality of all the manifestations necessary for
its development. Hence it is organisation as well as expan-
sion, and it may be thereby considered, at least virtually,
equal to the very nature of the human will, which in its
evolution recognises no barriers, and which realises itself by
proving its infinity.

The R61e of the State.

12 . The Fascist State, the highest and the most powerful
form of personality, is a force, but a spiritual one. It re-
assumes aU the forms of the moral and intellectual life of man.
It caimot, therefore, be limited to a simple function of order
and of safeguarding, as was contended by Liberalism. It is
not a simple mechanism which limits the sphere of the pre-
sumed individual liberties. It is an internal form and rule,
a discipline of the entire person ; it penetrates the will as
well as the intelligence. Its principle, a central inspiration
of the living human personality in the civil community,
descends into the depths and settles in the heart of the man
of action as well as of the thinker, of the artist as well as of
the scientist ; the soul of our soul.

DOCTRINE

Discipline and Authority.

13. Fascism, in short, is not only a lawgiver and the
founder of institutions, but an educator and a promoter of
the spiritual life. It aims to rebuild not the forms of human
life, but its content, the man, the character, the faith. And
for this end it exacts discipline and an authority which de-
scends into and dominates the interior of the spirit without
opposition. Its emblem, therefore, is the lictorian fasces,
symbol of unity, of force and of justice.

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CHAPTER II

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ETHICS

Mussolini’s Furlher Exposition. Growth of Doctrine. Peace and J^ature.
Battle of Life. Socialism Answered. Democracy. Libeialism in His-
tory. The Twentieth-Century State. Religion and the State. The
Roman Tradition. Universality Claimed.

A S a supplement to his description of the philoso-
^phical doctrine of Fascism, Mussolini has added a
further contribution to the Enciclopedia Italiana in
which he develops the political and social doctrines of
his regime. In this there can be clearly followed the
elements of Fascism which bring it into contrast with
all other political conceptions. Writing of the begin-
nings of the Fascist idea Mussolini says ; “ The years
which preceded the March on Rome were years in
which the necessity of action did not permit complete
doctrinal investigations or elaborations. The battle
was raging in the towns and villages. There w'ere dis-
cussions, but what was more important and sacred —
was to die. Men knew how to die. The doctrine — all
complete and formed, with divisions into chapters,
paragraphs and accompanying elucubrations — might
be missing ; but there was something more decided
to replace it ; there was faith.” To know how to die
means also that one knows how to hve. And to live
is to be able to fight.

far as the general future and development of
humanity is concerned and apart from any mere con-
sideration of current politics, Fascism above all does
not believe either in the possibility or utility of uni-
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POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ETHICS

versal peace. It therefore rejects the pacifism which
masks surrender and cowardice. War alone brings
all human energies to their highest tension and im-
prints a seal of nobility on the peoples who have the
virtue to face it. All other tests are but substitutes
which never make a man face himself in the alterna-
tive of life or death. A doctrine which has its starting-
point at the prejudicial postulate of peace is therefore
extraneous to Fascism.

“ In the same way all international creations (which,
as history demonstrates, can be blown to the winds
when sentimental, ideal and practical elements storm
the heart of a people) are also extraneous to tlie spirit
of Fascism — even if such international creations are
accepted for whatever usefulness they may have in any
determined political situation.

“ Fascism also transports this anti-pacifist spirit into
the life of individuals. The proud squadrista motto
‘ me ne frego ’ (anglicfe : ‘ I don’t give a damn ’)
scrawled on the bandages of the wounded is an act of
philosophy not only stoic. It is a summary of a doc-
trine not only political : it is an education in strife and
an acceptance of the risks which it carries ; it is a new
style of Itahan life. It is thus that the F ascist loves and
accepts fife, ignores and disdains suicide ; understands
fife as a duty, a lifting up, a conquest ; something to be
filled up and sustained on a high plane ; a thing that
has to be lived through for its own sake, but above
all for the sake of others near and far, present and
future.”

Mussolini then explains that the “ demographic ”
policy of the regime is the consequence of these prem-
ises. “ The Fascist also loves his neighbour, but
‘ neighbour ’ is not for him a vague and undefinable

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word ; love for his neighbour does not prevent neces-
sary educational severities. Fascism rejects professions
of universal affection and, though living in the com-
munity of civilised peoples, it watches them and looks
at them diffidently. It follows them in their state of
mind and in the transformation of their interests, but
it does not allow itself to be deceived by fallacious and
mutable appearances.”

This new notion of life as a spiritual battle brings
Mussolini to consideration of the place of Fascism in
the social system. He confronts Socialism and con-
demns it, arguing that it is the exponent of a mistaken
conception of human happiness, namely, self-sufficient
materialism.

“ It is the Fascist conception of life,” he writes,
“ which leads Fascism to be the emphatic negation of
the doctrine which constituted the basis of the so-
called scientific Socialism or Marxism : the doctrine
of historic materialism, according to which the story
of human civilisation is to be explained only by the
conflict of interests between the various social groups
and with the change of the means and instruments of
production.

“ That the economic vicissitudes — discovery of
prime or raw materials, new methods of labour, scien-
tific inventions — have their particular importance, is
denied by none, but that they suffice to explain human
tiistory, excluding other factors from it, is absurd :
Fascism still believes and will always believe in sanc-
tity and in heroism, that is to say, in acts in which no
economic motive — ^immediate or remote — operates.

“ Fascism having denied historic materialism, by
which men are only puppets in history, appearing and
disappearing on the surface of the tides, while in the
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POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ETHICS

depths the real directive forces act and labour, it also
denies the immutable and irreparable class warfare,
which is the natural filiation of such an economistic
conception of history ; and it denies above all that
class warfare is the preponderating agent of social
transformation.

“ Being defeated on these two capital points of its
doctrine, nothing remains of Socialism save the senti-
mental aspiration — as old as humanity — to achieve a
community of social life in which the sufferings and
hardships of the humblest classes are alleviated. But
here Fascism repudiates the concept of an economic
‘ happiness ’ wHch is to be — at a given moment in
the evolution of economy — sociahstically and almost
automatically realised by assuring to all the maximum
of well-being.

‘'^Fascism denies the possibilities of the materialistic
concept of ‘ happiness / — ^it leaves that to the econo-
mists of the first half of the Seventeenth Century ; that
is, it denies the equation ‘ well-being happiness,’ which
reduces man to the state of the animals, mindful of only
one thing — that of being fed and fattened ; reduced, in
fact, to a pure and simple vegetative existence.”

Mussolini faces realities concerning kings and re-
publics, democracy and the equality of man :

“After disposing of Socialism, Fascism opens a
breach in the whole complex of the democratic ideolo-
gies, and repudiates them in their theoretic premises
as well as in their practical application or instrumenta-
tion. Fascism denies that numbers, by the mere fact
of being numbers, can direct human society ; it denies
that these numbers can govern by means of periodical
consultations ; it affirms also the fertilising, beneficent
and unassailable inequality of men, /who cannot be

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THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

levelled through an extrinsic and mechanical process
such as universal suffrage.

“ Regimes can be called democratic which, from
time to time, give the people the illusion of being
sovereign, whereas the real and effective sovereignty
exists in other, and very often secret and irresponsible
forces.

“ Democracy is a regime without a king, but very
often with many kings, far more exclusive, tyrannical
and ruinous than a single king, even if he be a tyrant,
“ This explains why Fascism which, for contingent
reasons, had assumed a republican tendency before
1922, renounced it previous to the March on Rome,
with the conviction that the political constitution of a
State is not nowadays a supreme question ; and that,
if the examples of past and present monarchies and
past and present republics are studied, the result is
that neither monarchies nor republics are to be judged
under the assumption of eternity, but that they merely
represent forms in which the extrinsic poUtical evolu-
tion takes shape as well as the history, tire tradition and
the psychology of a given coimtry.

“ Consequently Fascism glides over the antithesis
between monarchy and republic, on which democra-
ticism wasted time, blaming the former for all social
shortcomings, and exalting the latter as a regime of
perfection. Yet it has been seen that there are repub-
lics which may be profoundly absolutist and reaction-
ary, and monarchies which welcome the most ven-
turesome social and political experiments.’*

Liberal doctrines are then considered and dismissed,
their lasting good influences denied :

“ As regards the Liberal doctrines, the attitude of
Fascism is one of absolute opposition both in the
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POLITICAL Am SOCIAL ETHICS

political and in the economical field. There is no
need to exaggerate the importance of Liberalism in
the last century — simply for the sake of present-day
polemics — and to transform one of the numerous doc-
trines unfolded in that last century into a religion of
humanity for all times, present and future. Liberalism
did not flourish for more than a period of fifteen years.
It was born in 1830 from the reaction against the Holy
Alliance, which attempted to set Europe back to the
period which preceded ’89, and had its years of splen-
dour in 1848, when also Pius IX. was a Liberal. Its
decadence began immediately afterwards. If 1848
was a year of fight and poesy, 1849 was a year of weak-
ness and tragedy. The Roman Republic was killed by
another Republic, the French Republic. In the same
year Marx issued his famous manifesto of Communism.
In^ 1851 Napoleon III. made his anti-Liberal coup
d’Etat and reigned over France until 1870. He was
overthrown by a popular movement, following one
of the greatest defeats registered in history. The victor
was Bismarck, who always ignored the religion of liberty
and its prophets. It is symptomatic that a people of
high civilisation like the Germans completely ignored
the religion of liberty throughout the whole Nineteenth
Century — ^with but one parenthesis represented by that
which was called ‘ the ridiculous parliament of Frank-
fort,’ which lasted one season. Germany realised its
national unity outside of Liberalism, against Liberal-
ism — a doctrine which seemed alien to the German
spirit, a spirit essentially monarchical, since Liberalism
is the historic and logical anti-chamber of anarchy.

“ The three wars of 1864, 1866 and 1870 conducted
by ‘ Liberals ’ fike Moltke and Bismarck mark the
three stages of German unity. As for Italian unity,

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Liberalism played a very inferior part in the make-up
of Mazzini and Garibaldi, who were not Liberals.
Without the intervention of the anti-Liberal Napoleon
we would not have had Lombardy, and without the
help of the anti-Liberal Bismarck at Sadowa and Sedan
it is very likely that we would not have got Venice in
1866 or that we would have entered Rome in 1870.

“ During the period of 1870-1915 the preachers of
the new Credo themselves denounced the twilight of
their religion : it was beaten in the breach by deca-
dence in literature. It was beaten in the open by
activism in practice. Activism ; that is to say,
nationalism, futurism, Fascism.

“ The ‘ Liberal Century,’ after having accumulated
an infinity of Gordian knots, sought to cut them in the
hecatomb of the World War. Never did any religion
impose such a terrible sacrifice. Have the gods of
Liberalism slaked their blood-thirst ?

“ Liberalism is now on the point of closing the
doors of its deserted temples because the nations feel
that its agnosticism in the economic field and its in-
difference in political and moral matters causes, as it
has already caused, the sure ruin of States. That is
why all the political experiences of the contemporary
world are anti-Liberal, and it is supremely silly to seek
to classify them as things outside of history — as if his-
tory was a hunting-ground reserved to Liberalism and
its professors ; as if Liberalism were the last and in-
comparable word of civilisation.”

The omnipotent character of the State is argued :

“ The capital point of Fascist doctrine is the concep-
tion of the State, its essence, the work to be accom-
plished, its final aims. In the conception of Fascism,
the State is an absolute before which individuals and
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POLITICAL AMD SOCIAL ETHICS

groups are relative. Individuals and groups are ‘ con-
ceivable ’ inasmuch as they are in the State. The
Liberal State does not direct the movement and the
material and spiritual evolution of collectivity, but
limits itself to recording the results ; the Fascist State
has its conscious conviction, a will of its own, and for
this reason it is called an ‘ ethical ’ State.

“ From 1929 onwards to the present day, the uni-
versal, political and economical evolution has still
further strengthened these doctrinal positions. The
giant who rules is the State. The one who can resolve
the dramatic contradictions of capital is the State.
What is called the crisis cannot be resolved except by
the State and in the State.”

Mussohni does not allow his assertions to go un-
supported. His thesis on the Fascist State is fortified
by a further criticism of the Liberal State, and the in-
creased strength of the individual in the Fascist State
is expounded.

“ If Liberalism signifies the individual — then Fas-
cism signifies the State. But the Fascist State is unique
in its kind and is an original creation. It is not re-
actionary but revolutionary, inasmuch as it anticipates
the solution of certain universal problems such as
those which are treated elsewhere (i) in the political
sphere, by the subdivisions of parties, in the prepon-
derance of parliamentarism and in the irresponsibfiity
of assemblies ; (2) in the economic sphere, by the
functions of trade unions which are becoming con-
stantly more numerous and powerful, whether in the
labour or industrial fields, in their conflicts and com-
binations ; and (3) in the moral sphere by the necessity
of order, discipline, obedience to those who are the
moral dictators of the country.

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THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

“ Fascism wants the State to be strong, organic and
at the same time supported on a wide popular basis.

“ As part of its task the Fascist State has penetrated
the economic field : through the corporative, social
and educational institutions which it has created.
The presence of the State is felt in the remotest rami-
fications of the country. And in the State also, all
the political, economic and spiritual forces of the
nation circulate, mustered in their respective organ-
isations.

“ A State which stands on the support of millions of
individuals who recognise it, who believe in it, who
are ready to serve it, is not the tyrannical State of the
medieval lord. It has nothing in common with the
absolutist States before or after ’89.

“ The individual in the Fascist State is not annulled
but rather multiplied, just as in a regiment a soldier
is not diminished, but multiplied by the number of his
comrades.

“ The Fascist State organises the nation, but leaves
a sufficient margin afterwards to the individual ; it
has limited the useless or harmful hberties and has
preserved the essential ones.

“ The one to judge in this respect is not the indivi-
dual, but the State.”

Of the essential place of religion in the State Musso-
lini writes ;

“ The Fascist State is not indifferent to the presence
of the fact of religion in general nor to the presence of
that particular established religion, which is Italian
Catholicism. The State has no theology, but it has
morality. In the Fascist State, religion is considered
as one of the most profound manifestations of the
spirit ; it is therefore not only respected, but de-
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POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ETHICS

fended and protected. 'The Fascist State does not
create its own ‘ God ’ as Robespierre wanted to do at
a certain moment in the last frenzies of the Convention ;
nor does it vainly endeavour to cancel the idea of God
from the mind as Bolshevism tries to do. Fascism
respects the God of the ascetics, of the saints, and of
the heroes. It also respects God as he is conceived
and prayed to in the ingenuous and primitive heart
of the people.”.

In conclusion he points to the real import of the
Roman Empire as an inspiration and example to
Italy in the expansion of thought, and acclaims the
Fascist faith as the conquering political force of the
Twentieth Century.

“ The Fascist State is a will expressing power and
empire. The Roman tradition here becomes an idea
of force. In the Fascist doctrine, empire is not only a
territorial or a military or a commercial expression :
it is a moral and a spiritual one. An empire can be
thought of, for instance, as a nation which direcdy or
indirectly guides other nations — without the need of
conquering a single mile of territory. For Fascism,
the tendency to empire, that is to say the expansion of
nations, is a manifestation of vitality ; its contrary (the
stay-at-home attitude) is a sign of decadence. Peoples
who rise, or who suddenly flourish again, are imperial-
istic ; peoples who die are peoples who abdicate.
Fascism is a doctrine which most adequately repre-
sents the tendencies, the state of mind of a people like
the Italian people, which is rising again after many
centuries of abandonment and of foreign servitude.

“ But empire requires discipline, the co-ordination
of forces, duty and sacrifice. This explains many phases
of the practical action of the regime. It explains the

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THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

aims of many of the forces of the State and the neces-
sary severity against those who would oppose them-
selves to this spontaneous and irresistible movement
of the Italy of the Twentieth Century by trying to
appeal to the discredited ideologies of the Nineteenth
Century, which have been repudiated wherever great
experiments of political and social transformation
have been daringly undertaken.

“ Never more than at the present moment have the
nations felt such a thirst for an authority, for a direc-
tion, for order. If every century has its peculiar doc-
trine, there are a thousand indications that Fascism
is that of the present century. That it is a doctrine of
life is shown by the fact that it has created a faith ;
that the faith has taken possession of mind is demon-
strated by the fact that Fascism has had its fallen and
its martyrs.

“ Fascism has now attained in the world an univer-
sality over all doctrines. Being realised, it represents
an epoch in the history of the human mind.”

CHAPTER III
DOCTRINE INTO CULT

Revolution Idea Kept Alive. Symbolism, Altars and Rites. “Presente.”
History Exalted. Military Spirit and Religious Formulas. The Deca-
logue. The Oath. The Prayer. Ara Patria. “ The Book and the
Rifle.” “ Fascist Culture.” National Conscience.

H OW are these abstract doctrines, these pragmatic
ideas, these new statements of governmental
ideals, these new forces of life, these revolutionary out-
looks — how are they transfused into the brains and
blood of the Italian people ? A nation can accept the
results of a regime and acclaim that regime so long as
the results are beneficial in a material sense. But such
an acceptance of the material improvements bestowed
on Italy by Fascist rule would be the very negation of
Fascism. We have seen that the antithesis of Fascism
is the easy contented life. How does Mussolini ensure
that the forty million people of Italy don’t only
accept the body-politic and not the spirit ?

It is done by keeping alive the spirit of the Revolution.
The year 1922, the year of the March on Rome, is not
looked on — is not allowed to be looked on — merely as
the date of a revolutionary putsch which marked the
beginning of a new form of Government by a new set
of men. Instead, the people are told that the Revolu-
tion is in continuous progress, that it is a thing alive
today and tomorrow, impelled ever onward by the
same forces which culminated in the Fascist accession
to power. The motto, “ Fight, fight, fight,” which
X ^21

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

characterised the squadristi days in the struggle against
their opponents, is still emblazoned on the propaganda
scrolls of today — the fight now being for the further
penetration of Fascist principles against all and any
opposition “ whomsoever, wheresoever and whenso-
ever.” The crusade for the universality of Fascism is
one of personal and national example.

We have seen how Mussolini has elevated his politi-
cal philosophy to a faith. It has accordingly become
what may be likened to a religion with all the sym-
bolism, emblems, tokens, martyrs’ rolls, commemora-
tive festivals, creeds and decalogues associated with a
cult. By the recognition, the honouring and the exer-
cise of these, the fact of the Fascist revolutionary
political faith is kept alive and active.

Special significance and ceremonies max'k the annual
occurrence of Italian festivals. The 21st of April, the
festival of the Birth of Rome, has been given a double
significance by being selected as Italy’s Labour Day.
The idea of the continued growth of a Roman Italy
is emphasised in “ coping-stone ” ceremonies for public
works completed during the year. October 28, anni-
versary of the March on Rome, and November 4,
anniversary of Victory Day (equivalent to our Armis-
tice Day), are celebrated with full parade throughout
the land.

The symbol of the lictor and the gesture of the
Fascist salute of course identifies modern Italy with
things of Imperial Rome, and the bannerets of the
Fascists are not looked on as mere flags to wave, but
as sacred tokens of their faith. The names of local
Fascists who have fallen are inscribed on many of
them and others are decorated with the war honours
of the vanished comrades. The Fascists are taught
322

DOCTRINE INTO CULT

that the salutes given to the flag are tributes to the
memory of those who have fought and died for the
ideals that the living now continue fighting to fulfil,
The Blackshirts have a passion for anniversaries, so
that no contribution of history. National or Party, is
allowed to fade into forgetfulness or indifference.

On the classic summit of the Capitoline hill, on the
site where the triple deities, Jupiter, Jove and Minerva
once received the worship of the Romans, an altar
to the victims of the Fascist Revolution has been
erected. Pilgrimages are made to it, and its base is
always hidden with a succession of laurel wreaths
sent from aU parts of the country. The altar as a form
of monument is prominent in the Fascist movement.
When the lira was stabilised on a gold standard, the
paper money representing inflation was not merely
burned in bank furnaces . It was symbolically consumed
on an altar fire before the National Monument in
Rome.

Orations made at the altars are usually marked
with aU the rhetoric of mysticism. The newspapers
frequently report incidents of Fascists young or old,
who, on their deathbeds, cry out to be dressed and
buried in their black shirt. At funerals of Fascists it
is also the established rite for the senior Blackshirt
present to call out the name of the dead comrade,
whereupon the assembled mourners answer with a
shouted ” Present.” A similar rite is performed at aU
large special assemblies of Fascists, especially on
Great War or Revolution anniversaries. The names
of their heroes are shouted and the multitude answers
with “ Present.”

At the Fascist Revolution “ Tenth Year ” Exhibi-
tion a great circular hall in memory of the fallen was

323

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

designed with its walls covered with the illuminated
word “ Presente” and below this sign of coiitinuity in
sacrifice were ranged the flags of the early Fasci di
Combattimento. In the centre of the hall stood an
illuminated cross. Everything else was dim and
hushedj save for the faint sound of a radio arrangement
which transmitted, like a faint echo, the choral singing
of the Fascist hymn, Giovinezza- Each of the hundreds
of thousands who were organised from all parts of Italy
to visit the exhibition were ushered into this room of
sacrificial memories on conclusion of their inspection
of the Revolution relics.

This kind of symbolism is carried into every phase
of Italian public life. All institution buildings are
characterised by a display of salient and apposite
mottoes quoted from the pungent utterances of Musso-
lini. The spiritual aspects of Fascism as described in
the doctrine are woven into the texts of every school-
book and university handbook. The emblem of the
fasces and lictor meets the eye at every turn, and that
insignia, together with the cross, and portraits of the
King and Mussolini, are displayed in every classroom,
hall of justice and government office throughout the
realm.

These influences permeate the whole organisation
of the country as built up by the F ascist regime. That
organisation will be outlined in due course, but it has
to be remembered that the idea of Fascism as a cult is
always kept present. The war and Italian history is
exalted. The combative element of body and spirit is
insisted on. And Mussolini is upheld as the saviour and
creator of Italy, his name extolled as the supreme
artificer of the nation’s destiny. The absolutism of
Fascism and the absolutism attributed to Mussolini by

324

DOCTRINE INTO CULT

the Fascists is indicated in the position given to the
Stale in accordance with the doctrine, and the repeti-
tion in all schoolbooks and manuals for young
Fascists of the phrase, “ Mussolini is always right.”

The first ideas of the symbolism introduced by the
poet d’Annunzio for the inspiration of his Arditi during
the Fiume episode, are now surpassed and consolidated
in the framework of the Fascist national system.

Guidebooks to the galleries of mediaeval art and
to the forums have been rewritten for the rising genera-
tions so that these Italian works of art and Roman
memories are no longer just material for objective
study. These glorious memorials are instead de-
scribed as belonging to the new Italy, blood of its
blood — an inheritance, a justification and a starting-
point for new endeavour. The companion of Dante
is invoked from the shades : Virgil is the prophet of
new Caesars.

By making all these things politically, socially and
nationally sacred — attributes of a “ faith,” Fascism
has automatically ostracised a sense of humour from
its manifestations, for no man can be witty at the
expense of his faith. And being absolute in its con-
ception of the State and the place of the individual in
the State, leg-pulling must be political blasphemy and
any opposition to Fascist principles means political
heresy — the unforgivable sin.

Against some of the Blackshirt ceremonies and inci-
dental customs — like the altar orations and the requests
of the dying as above described — the Catholic Church
has on occasion made local protest. Each watches the
other with jealous eye across the debatable ground
where their demarcation of the things of God and
Caesar overlap.

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THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

The doctrinal religion of Fascism is developed on
militaiy formulas, so that the ideas of discipline,
obedience, service, sacrifice, co-operation and a
fighting spirit may be more potently and immediately
encouraged. The Fascist Militia have a “ Decalogue ”
which reads :

“ Know that the Fascist and specially the Militia-
men ought not to believe in perpetual peace.

” Punishment is always deserved.

“You serve your country even when you stand
guard over a tin of petrol.

“ A comrade ought to be as a brother (i) because
he lives with you, and (2) because he thinks like you.

“ Your rifle and cartridge pouch, etc., hav^ been
entrusted to you, not to be spoiled with laziness, but
to be preserved for war,

“ Never say ‘ Anyhow the Government pays,’ be-
cause it is you yourself who pays ; and the Govern-
ment is that which you wanted, the one for which
you have put on your uniform.

“ Discipline is the sun of the armies — without which
soldiers have but confusion and defeat.

“ Mussolini is always right !

“ A volunteer has no excuse when he disobeys.

“ One thing ought to be clear above all : the life
of the Duce”

The Militiaman’s oath is : “I swear to carry out
the orders of the Duce without discussion, to serve
the cause of the Fascist Revolution with all my
strength and if necessary with my blood.” And then
there is the Militiaman’s prayer which reads : “ O
God, who lightest all flames and strengthenest all
hearts, renew each day my passion for Italy. Make
me always more worthy of our Dead, in order that
326

DOCTRINE INTO CULT

they themselves more strong may answer ‘ Present ’
to the living. Nourish my book (thought) with Thy
wisdom and my rifle (action) with Thy will. Make
my vision more sharp and my feet more steadfast on
the sacred passes of my country : on its highways, by
its coasts, in its forests and on its fourth shore (North
Africa) which once was Rome’s. Make me worthy
when the future soldier marches beside me in the
ranks, so that I hear his faithful heartbeats. Make me
worthy when the insignia and flags are carried so that
everyone may recognise in them the Fatherland : the
Fatherland which we will make more great by each
faithfully adding his little to the work. O Lord !
Make the cross the ensign which precedes the banner
of my legion. And save Italy in the Duce, always and
in the hour of dying in harness. Amen.”

The decalogue, the oath and the prayer perhaps be-
long more to the chapter describing the Militia, but
they are instead inserted here as symptomatic of how
the tenets of the abstract doctrine are transferred to
the levels of practical affairs by the guardians of the
Revolution. Republished frequently in the news-
papers and magazines, disseminated in schoolbooks,
and inscribed on walls, these sentiments or sentiments
like them — all expressed in slogan form — are always
being impressed in the public mind.

Another element of spiritual force assiduously
developed is the new and special importance given to
the National Monument in the ceremonies of the
people. No visitor to Rome can have escaped noticing
the enormous and ornate marble pile which rises high
over the roofs of Rome at the southern end of the
Corso in the Piazza Venezia. The erection as a whole
was put up by the past regimes as a grandiose mem-

3^7

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

orial of Italy’s Risorgimento unity. Below a colossal
statute of the Dea Roma on the pedestal of this enor-
mous monument Italy’s Unknown Soldier is buried.
With its Risorgimento associations ; with its gilded
statue of the first King of United Italy ; with its
figure of Roma, destiny in hand ; with the Unknown
Soldier’s tomb ; with a Roman altar marked with the
emblem of the Fascist axe ; with its commanding
position, facing north, screening the Capitol ; with its
great broad flight of steps, made for ceremonial
parades, this National Monument set in the heart of
Rome, has become a national shrine, the Altar of the
Country. Not a day passes without some homage to
what is symbolised.

And in the Party headquarters there is a Votive
Chapel where the Fascists pray and hold vigil like the
knights of other days.

I In the Universities the young Fascists are taught to
revere the double emblem of the Book and the Rifle,
symbolising the Pensiero and Azione of Mazzini and
Mussolini

Courses of " Fascist Culture ” are also given in
various educational institutions, but it is with the
above-mentioned rites, rituals, symbols and ceremon-
ies that the “ moral ” and “ ethical ” significance of
Mussolini’s doctrines are impinged on a nation whose
love of parades and the picturesque makes the lessons
conveyed all the more impressionable.

The great aim is the creation and sustenance of a
national conscience.

328

FASCISM IN BEING

“ If there is anything certain in
human affairs, it is that valuable
acquisitions are only to be retained
by the continuation of the same
ener^es which gained them. In
the inevitable changes of human
affairs, new inconveniences and
dangers continually grow up which
must be countered by new resources
and contrivances. Whatever quali-
ties, therefore, in a government tend
to encourage activity, energy, cour-
age, originality, are requisites of
Permanence as well as of Progress,”
John Stuart Mill.

“ The best kind of wisdom is that
which does not surrender after
victory.”

Mussolini.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

T he governmental machine erected by the Fascist
State does not only concern the mechanism for
running a new form of government. It also provides
for the continuity of the Revolution itself and, as well,
it formulates the means for the self-protection of the
Revolution, State and Government. And yet, de-
spite these things, it is claimed that aU is done within
the orbit of the Constitution — the changes in the
letter of the Constitution being but the reinforcement
and rejuvenation of its spirit. The machine is, in
short, just such an original and energetic confrontation
of these inevitable changes of human affairs which
John Stuart Mill envisaged in the quotation, cited on
the previous page, as the requisite of permanence and
progress.

Mussolini, as we have seen from his exposition of
Fascist doctrine, has done much more than make mere
statutory adjustments in legislative form. Through
legislation he has impressed his system ” of govern-
ment and of life ” into every department of the nation’s
activities, physical and mental : and he has done this
in such a way that each department is at some point
correlated to another. For this reason it is quite im-
possible to isolate groups of laws under strict categori-
cal headings.

Nevertheless, to facilitate a survey of the legislative
machine of the Fascist State, I have in the following
pages grouped the component parts under headings

331

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

such as Constitutional Changes, Protective Laws,
Continuity Laws, the Corporative State, Social Welfare,
etc. In reality, however, it would be difficult to say
whether, for instance, the Fascist Volunteer Militia
should come under the Constitutional, Protective, Con-
tinuity, Social Welfare (physical education) group or
the Army. The Corporative State likewise flows into
Public Welfare, Public Works, National and Inter-
national Economy.

This amazing criss-cross of correlated interests is
by no means the least interesting of the many features
of the Fascist State ; but it is one which presses
heavily on any who would embark upon such a task
as this book represents. “ Unitarian State ” is easy
to say, but intricate to describe. I would therefore
ask the reader to remember that all the items touching
government or law in the following chapters are inter-
connected, directly or indirectly, with one another ;
and that through them all there also runs the spiritual
strain described in the chapter “ Doctrine into Cult.”

Having followed the growth of Fascism step by step
there is bound to be a certain amormt of repetition
in these following chapters describing the State
organisation of Fascism as it stands today. In order
to make sectional completeness this is unavoidable.'

332

CHAPTER I

CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES

Special Powers to Prime Minister. Alone Responsible to the King. Laws
by Royal Decree. The Fascist Party. Its Organs. National Council.
Directory. Strength. The Grand Council Constitution. Deliberative
Functions. Its Powers : Election Lists, Succession to the Throne, Pre-
rogatives of Crown, Government and Foreign Affairs, Succession to Capo
del Governo. Modality of Royal Selection of Capo del Governo. Recom-
position of Chamber. Election Methods. Senate. Academy,

T he evolution of the Italian Constitution from its
embryo form as the Statute of 1848 received from
1924 onwards several revolutionary adjustments at the
hands of the Fascists. These adjustments were carried
out in the name of restoring the classic Roman tradi-
tion of a strong and authoritative State. The first in-
novation was the concession of absolute and indepen-
dent seniority to the Prime Minister over all the other
members of the Cabinet. The Cabinet Ministers are
no longer responsible directly to the King, but to the
Prime Minister in his capacity as Capo del Governo.
The Capo del Governo is alone responsible to the
King not only for his own governmental acts but for
those of his ministers. The Capo del Governo directs
and co-ordinates the various ministers and ministries.
In this manner the final executive power is unified and
identified in one man who is alone answerable to the
Sovereign. A Fascist Premier is something consider-
ably more than primus inter pares. Among unusual
prerogatives is one whereby all bills and questions
for debate must be approved by the Capo del Governo,

333

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

a system which effectively prevents the Government
from ever being surprised by a snatch-vote or by an
unexpected criticism.

The second important new function is one conceded
to the Cabinet ; that of having the power and au-
thority to make laws by Royal Decree, without
necessarily having any confirmation in the Chamber
until after the Decree has become law. This is of course
a common enough emergency system in other countries,
but in Italy it is normal and not abnormal. The
conditions of modem life, especially in economic and
international affairs, demand a speedy, secret and im-
mediately effective method of creating laws. The
field in which this power is exercised has in Italy
stipulated limits, but the proviso that mgency is
necessary is sufficient to justify the extension of that
field to practically any limits.

iThe Fascist Party, although not in a strictly juridical
sense identified with the Constitution, is linked to it
through the offices of the Duce and of the Party Secre-
tary! The Party Secretary exercises not a power but
an influence in Italy second only to that of the Capo
del Governo. The Party develops its activities imder
the supreme leadership of II Duce, who must also be
Capo del Governo. The Party Secretary is nominated
by Royal Decree on the recommendation of the Capo
del Governo. He has a place in the Cabinet. He is
a member by right of the Supreme Commission of
State Defence.

■The Party does not only connect itself upwards into
the hierarchy of the State but it links itself on to
provincial administrations and through them right
down to the people. The real task of the Party in
fact is, while asserting its place in the high councils oD
334

CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES

the nation, to keep in touch with the masses. , The
Party orgar^s are the Grand Council, the Directory,
the National Council and the Disc^linary Court.

The Grand Council is the vital centre of both Party
and State. It is the synthesis of the Revolution : the
extension into national administrative life of the
constituent elements which organised the early battles
against the Reds, the committee which was respon-
sible for the March on Rome, the council which fought
the democratic-liberal opposition. The president of
the Grand Council is the Capo del Govemo, Duce del
Fascismo. It is a deliberative body which co-ordinates
the whole life of the regime. It has no executive func-
tions ; but what resolutions it passes today become
Government and Party policy and law tomorrow.

The Directory is a committee which does for the
Party what the Cabinet does for the Chamber : it
puts Grand Council resolutions affecting the Party
into immediate execution, just as the Cabinet puts
Grand Council resolutions affecting Government into
effective practice.

The National Council is composed of the Secretaries
of the Provincial Federations of Fascists. The Federal
Secretaries are nominated by the Capo del Governo
on the recommendation of the Party Secretary. The
local provincial and territorial Secretaries depend from
the Federal Secretaries. There are also provincial
Directories concerned with Party administration.
These secretaries and directories control the individual
Fasci centres ; and the members of these Fasci meet
in formal assembly at least once a year to learn the
programme which the Party intends to carry out. The
members are presumed to be the pick of the people —
the most self-disciplined, hard-working and loyal. On

335

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

getting their membership card they swear to obey the
orders of the Duce without discussion, to defend the
cause of the Revolution with all their might, even to
death if necessary. The Disciplinary Court is con-
cerned with internal action touching the discipline of
the Party and its members. Its findings are some-
times published.

The strength of the Fascist Party membership at the
beginning of the eleventh year of Fascism was as
follows : Men, 1,007,231 ; Women, 145,210 ; Young
Fascists, 39,314 ; Young Fighting Fascists, 608,669 ;
University Fascists, 57,996 ; School Association Fas-
cists, 108,127; Civil Servant Fascists, 191,269;
Public Works Fascists, 68,854 ; Railwaymen Fascists,
122,096 ; and Post Office Fascists, 69,357. These re-
present people who actually hold the party ticket.
Large membership is not encouraged. Indeed more
attention is given to weeding out the ranks rather than
adding to them. The above figures represent the
current general level maintained in the Party. There
are of course tens of thousands of others who are
affiliated one way or another to the Party, without
being actual members.

Now let us return to a description of the Grand
Fascist Council.

There are three categories of members on the
Grand Council : (r) The Quadrumvirate of the

March on Rome and a small group of persons who
serve for a limited time in virtue of offices which they
hold in the regime. (2) Members who are appointed
automatically when they take up certain other offices.
This category includes the President of the Senate, the
Speaker of the Chamber, those who hold political
portfolios, the Commander-in-Chief of the Fascist

33 ^

CONSTITUTIOML CHANGES

Militia, the heads of the principal Syndical organisa-
tions and the Party Secretary, who is also the Secretary
of the Grand Council. All these people cease to be
members as soon as they lose the offices above de-
scribed. The third category consists of nominees
selected by the Capo del Governo. They are usually
technical experts or specialists, and their appointment
is for three years, renewable.

The first two categories are elected by Royal Decree
on the recommendation of the Capo del Governo.

The meetings of the Council are absolutely secret.
Beyond the laconic summaries given to the Press
through the Party Order Sheet, I have never known,
in over eleven years’ experience, of a single leakage of
the Council’s all-important deliberations.

As I have said, the Council’s functions are delibera-
tive. It decides on the final list of 400 parliamentary
candidates to be submitted to the electorate at election
time as one national constituency ; it approves the
statutes and policy of the Party ; it has power to
deliberate on the question of Succession to the Throne
and the prerogatives of the Grown ; it decides the
composition and duties of itself, the Chamber and the
Senate ; it can frame decree laws, trade union and
Corporation laws ; it can decide on foreign affairs and
on the relations between the Church and State ; and
it is the body which prepares the list of names from
which the successor to the Capo del Governo, Duce
del Fascismo, is nominated, in the event of the death,
removal or retirement of the Capo del Governo
holding office. For instance, the Council has already
chosen three names as possible successors to Mussolini.
These names are kept completely secret in the
bosom of the Council and in the secret archives of

337

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

the Party. When required, the envelope containing
the names will be handed to the King, who will make
his selection of one. In this manner succession is pro-
vided for under the word of the King and therefore
within the Constitution, as the King in selecting his
Chief Minister is exercising his Sovereign rights.

Another drastic modification of public rights affect-
ing the Constitution concerns the composition of the
Chamber. As already indicated, 400 members are
elected as for one national constituency. The system
of nominations has completely transformed the char-
acter of the Chamber. The deputies, as already
known to the reader, no longer represent consti-
tuencies, but specific national interests. In this
respect the Chamber has in theory the character of
a conference of diversified experts. The trade Cor-
porations and a selection of a few other State public
welfare and cultural institutions submit a total list
of 800 candidates to the Council. The minimum age
for candidates is twenty-five years. The Council select
400 of these and present the 400 names as one list to
an electorate of manhood suffrage. Electors are
twenty-one years old or eighteen if married. The
electorate vote yes or no for that list as a whole. If
by the faintest possible chance the list is rejected at
the poll, then another list of another 400 is submitted
and so on, until a list is elected. The elected period
is five years. The last elections, it will be remembered,
were in March 1929. How the Corporate trade union
hierarchical units have relieved the Chamber of much
of its deliberative functions will be referred to when
writing of the Corporative State.

The framework of the Senate has been left little
altered by the Fascists. It remains an Upper Chamber

338

CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES

of experienced legislators and men who have distin-
guished themselves in public office. Election to the
Senate used to be a method of public recognition for
services of a national character not necessarily political ;
but there were many Senators whose terms of usefulness
to the country were dead-ended by their promotion
to senatorial rank. That aspect of the Senate has been
eliminated by the creation of the Royal Italian Aca-
demy. This institution, modelled on the Academy of
France, has qualities which encourage the continued
application of the arts and sciences, not only by the
establishment of scholarships organised by the Aca-
demy for public competition, but it has definite re-
search branches which link it into the Corporative and
economic branches of the State, and through that to
the Constitution.

339

CHAPTER II

WHERE STATE AND LABOUR MEET

Novel Features. Labour Charier. Labour Courts. Employment and
Welfare. Collective Contracts. Strikes and Lock-outs Illegal. Sanc-
tions. Syndical Categories. Regional Categories. Their Purpose. The
Corporations. Their Purpose. State and Labour Co-operation. National
Council.

T he Fascist State is also known as a “ Unitarian,”
“ totalised ” or “ Corporate State.” The words
explain themselves ; all activities, in their complexity
of parts or in their national sum, are developed within
the orbit of the State. In short — team-work on a
national scale. As the wealth and well-being of a
modem State lie in its productive capacity, the largest
problems affecting the State concern the two indis-
pensable elements of production ; Capital and Labour,
Master and Man. It has been the endeavour of Fascist
Italy to correlate these elements and at the same time
to reconcile the continuous results of that correlation
to the interests of the State.

In order to achieve these ends a number of original
and revolutionary features have been put in operation
by the Fascist Government — the total features forming
a new mechanism of national government, produc-
tion, distribution, social welfare and political educa-
tion, known in its harmonised entirety as the Corporate
State.

It is to be noted that the task is by no means yet
completed. Much is yet in the experimental ” try —
failure — try again ” phase ; but enough experience has

340

STATE AMD LABOUR

already been gathered to convince the Fascist Govern-
ment that it is well on the way towards producing an
effective system of national collaboration destined to
open a new epoch of social-political thought and appli-
cation not alone in Italy but in other countries of the
civilised world.

The outstanding novelties of the Fascist system may
be generalised as follows ;

(1) A basic charter of rights for all employee workei's
(the Labour Charter).

(2) The enrolment or affiliation of every worker in
Italy— be he a manual or skilled labourer, an artisan,
an employer, a professional man, an intellectual
worker, an artist, whatsoever he be — in a Syndicate
appropriate to whatever of the above such categories
he may belong.

Enrolment is not compulsory. The real inducement
is that of personal interest ; and non-membership,
while depriving the individual of collective labour
advantages as well as benefits of a social welfare
nature, does not free him from the obligation of con-
tributing towards his category Syndicate, because his
Syndicate represents him and acts for him whether
he is a member or not.

(3) The legal recognition of these Syndicates by the
State — thus bringing them within the orbit of the
State for the protection of the status of the Syndicates
and for the exercise of a supreme unifying influence
and control.

Early experiments showed that the task of exam-
ining and granting the applications of the innumerable
Syndicates for legal recognition involved delays, so the
actual legal recognition is conceded to the category
Associations which are the next higher groupments of

34 ^

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

the local category Syndicates. Recognition of the larger
units automatically gives extension of privileges and
obligations to the lesser. While, technically, the Syn-
dicates are not thus recognised, I have nevertheless
continued to refer in this general paragraph to Syndi-
cates, and not to the Associations, so as to emphasise
the full range of the organisation. Associations which
are not recognised by the Government may exist.

(4) The faculty of the employee worker’s Syndicates
to make collective contracts for beneficial labour con-
ditions applicable to all within their category.

(5) Provision (through the Corporations) for a con-
tinuous consultative and deliberative co-operation
between employer and employee.

(6) The prohibition of strikes and lock-outs, with
penal sanctions.

(7) The creation of independent but technical boards
for the equitable resolution of individual grievances.

(8) The creation of a Labour Court for the settle-
ment of collective grievances.

(9) Machinery by means of which the Syndicates
or their representatives can be ranged territorially from
local to Provincial and National units, always within
their categories, and with the Syndicates of employers
and employees ascending in parallel extensions.

(10) Corporative machinery which provides for the
co-operation of employers and employees, together
with technical experts and Government represent-
atives at ascending territorial levels from local to
Provincial and National.

(11) A National Council of Corporations in touch
with the economic and social conditions of the whole
country which co-ordinates the relations and regula-
tions of the category units of employers and employees.

342

STATE AND LABOUR

(12) A Ministry of Corporations, with a knowledge
of the economic and political direction and necessities
of the Government, which exercises a higher control
and intervention when and where need be in the
totalised interests of the country at large.

(13) A Minister of Corporations who brings the
whole organisation of production and social welfare
into the supreme deliberations of the Cabinet, the
Fascist Council and the State.

(14) The category units of workers and professional
men in National Confederations which provide the
majority quota of parliamentary candidates from
which the Grand Fascist Council selects its list for
submission to the suffrage of the Italian electorate.

Having surveyed the principal characteristics of the
Fascist Corporate in a general ascending scale from
the workman to Minister, from Charter to Cabinet, and
from local Syndicates to Parliament, let us now go over
the same ground again in more detail and with a fuller
nomenclature.

For convenience’ sake I use the words employer and
employee ; but neither of these words, nor master and
man, nor labourer, have any place in the Fascist
Labour vocabulary. Instead, the employee or work-
man or labourer is called a “ worker ” and the
employer or master is called “ a giver of work.”

The Labour Charter does not deal with specific in-
stances but with general principles. It expresses,
axiomaticaUy, the purpose, rights and obligations of
workmen in the Fascist State. Its thirty clauses are
as follows :

I . The Italian Nation is an organism endowed with a pur-
pose, a life, and means of action transcending those of the
individuals, or groups of individuals composing it. It is a

343

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

moral, political and economic unit which finds its integral
realisation in the Fascist State.

2. Work in all its various forms — intellectual, technical or
manual — is a social duty. On these grounds, and on these
grounds alone, it is brought under the supervision of the
State.

From the national standpoint the mass of production repre-
sents a single unit ; it has one and a single object — namely,
the well-being of those engaged in production and the
development of national power.

3. There is complete freedom of professional or syndical
organisation. But Syndicate-Associations legally recognised
and subject to State control alone have the right of legal
representation of the whole category for which they arc con-
stituted ; they have the right to protect their interests in
their relations with the State or other professional associ-
ations ; to stipulate Collective Labour Contracts binding
on all members of the particular category ; to impose dues
and to exercise on their account public functions delegated
to them.

4. The concrete expression of the solidarity existing be-
tween the various factors of production is represented by the
Collective Labour Contract, which conciliates the opposing
interests of employers of labour and of workers, subordinating
them to the higher interests of production.

5. The Labour Court is the organ by means of which
the State intervenes in order to settle labour disputes,
whether arising from the observance of contracts or other
existing rules or from the formulation of new labour con-
ditions.

6. Legally recognised professional associations ensure legal
equality between employers and workers, keep a strict con-
trol over production and labour, and promote the improve-
ment of both.

The Syndicate-Associations constitute the unitary organi-
sation of the forces of production and integrally represent
their interests,

344

lABOUR’S MAGNA Cn\RlA

A piopigaiidi leproduction of the opemnc; Ai tides of the Fascist Labour
Chaitpi which dtlines thi lights, obligatiom and pruilegcs of the woikers on
a basis of class co operation

STATE AND LABOUR

In virtue of this integral rcprcscntationj and in view ol (he
fact that the interests of production are the interests of liie
nation, the law recognises them as State organs.

7. The Corporate State considers that in the sphere of pro-
duction private enterprise is the most effective and useful
instrument in the interests of the nation.

In view of the fact that the private organisation of pro-
duction is a function of national concern, the organiser of
the enterprise is responsible to the State for the direction
given to production. Collaboration between the forces of
production gives rise to reciprocal rights and duties, The
worker, whether technician, employer, or employee, is an
active collaborator in the economic enterprise, the responsi-
bility for the direction of which rests with the employer.

8. Professional Associations of Employers are required to
promote by all possible means a continued increase in the
quantity of production and a reduction of costs. The repre-
sentative organs of persons exercising a liberal profession or
art and associations of civil servants must encourage arts,
science and letters, with a view to improving production and
to the achievement of the moral objects of the Syndical
system.

g. State intervention in economic production arises only
when private initiative is lacking or is inadequate or when
political interests of the State arc involved. This interven-
tion may take the form of control, assistance or direct
management.

10. Judicial action cannot be invoked in collective labour
controversies unless the Syndicate-Association organ has first
attempted conciliation.

Professional Associations have the right in individual dis-
putes concerning the interpretation and application of col-
lective labour contracts to employ their good offices for the
purpose of conciliation.

Jurisdiction over such disputes is placed in the ordinary
Courts, assisted by assessors appointed by the professional
Associations concerned.

345

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

COLLECTIVE LABOUR CONTRACTS

1 1 . Professional Associations are required to regulate by
means of Collective Contracts the labour relations existing
between the categories of employers of labour and of workers
represented by them.

Collective Labour Contracts are concluded between the
first grade Associations under the direction and control of the
central organisations except in the event of the exercise of
the power of substitution by the higher grade Association in
the cases specified in the law and statutes.

All Collective Labour Contracts must, under pain of
nullity, contain precise rules on such matters as disciplinary
relations, period of approval, the amount and payment of re-
muneration and hours of work.

12. The action of the Syndicate, the conciliatory efforts of
the Syndicate organs and the decisions of the Labour Courts
shall guarantee that wages shall correspond to the normal
demands of life, to the possibilities of production and the out-
put of labour.

Wages shall be determined without reference to any gen-
eral rules by agreement between the parties to the collective
contracts.

13. The consequences of crises in production and of mone-
tary phenomena should be shared equally between all the
different factors of production.

The data furnished by public administrations, by the
Central Statistical Office and by the legally recognised pro-
fessional Associations with respect to conditions of production
and of work, the situation on the money market and the
variations in the standard of life of workers shah, after having
been co-ordinated and elaborated by the Ministry of Cor-
porations, supply the standard for reconciling the interests of
the various categories and of the various classes among each
other and with the higher interests of production.

14. When contracts concern piece-work, and the payments
due thereunder are made at intervals of more than fifteen
days, adequate weekly or fortnightly sums on account are due.

346

STATE AND LABOUR

Night worlc, with the exception of ordinary regular night
shifts, must be paid at a higher rate than day work.

In such cases where the work is paid at piece-rate, the rate
must be such that a diligent workman, of a normal working
capacity, will be able to earn a minimum amount over and
above the basic wage.

1 5 . The worker has the right to a weekly day of rest, which
shall fall on Sunday.

Collective Contracts shall apply this principle while taking
account of legal conditions in force, of the technical neces-
sities of the enterprise and, within the limits of these neces-
sities, shall see that civil and religious holidays are observed
according to local traditions. The working time-table must
be scrupulously and zealously observed by the worker.

1 6. Workers in enterprises of continuous activity shall,
after the expiry of a year of uninterrupted service, have the
right to an annual period of rest with pay.

17. In enterprises of continuous activity the worker has
the right, in the event of a cessation of labour relations on
account of discharge without any fault on his part, to an
indemnity proportional to his years of service. Similar in-
demnity is also due to his family or representatives in the
event of the death of a worker.

18. In enterprises of continuous activity the transfer of the
enterprise into other hands shall not put an end to the Labour
Contract, and the workers employed shall have the same
rights with regard to the new employer. Similarly, illness on
the part of the worker, provided it does not exceed a certain
period, shall not put an end to the Labour Contract. Call
to military service or to service in the National Militia shall
not be grounds of discharge.

19. Breaches of discipline or the performance of acts which
disturb the normal working of the enterprise on the part of
the workers shall be punished, according to the gravity of
the offence, by fine, suspension from work, or in certain cases
of gravity by immediate discharge without indemnity.

The cases when the employer can impose fines, suspension

347

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

from work or immediate discharge without payment of
indemnity shall be specified.

20. A worker on taking up a new post must go through
a period of approval ; both parties have a right to the can-
cellation of the contract merely by payment of the wage or
salary in respect of the time during which the worker was
actually employed.

2 1 . The privileges and control of Collective Labour Con-
tracts extend also to home workers. Special rules shall be
issued by the State in order to ensure the control and
hygiene of home work.

22. The State alone can ascertain and control the pheno-
menon of employment and unemployment of workers, which
is a complex index of the conditions of production and work.

EMPLOYMENT BUREAUS

23. Labour Employment Bureaus founded on a mutual
basis are subjected to the control of the Corporative organs.
Employers have the obligation to employ workers whose
names are on the register of the said bureaus and have the
right of choice among the names of those who are members
of the Party and the Fascist Syndicates according to their
seniority on the register.

24. The professional Associations of workers are required
to exercise a process of selection among the workers with the
object of achieving continuous improvement in their tech-
nical capacity and moral education.

25. The Corporative organs shall ensure the observance of
the laws on the prevention of accidents and the discipline
of work on the part of individuals belonging to the Federated
Associations.

WELFARE, EDUCATION AND INSTRUCTION

26. Providence is a further expression of the principle of
collaboration, and the employer and the worker should both
bear a proportional share of its burden. The State, through
the medium of Corporative and Professional Associations,

34 ^

STATE AND LABOUR

shall see to the co-ordination and unity, as far as possible,
of the system and Institutes of Providence.

27. The Fascist State imdertakes :

(i) the perfectioning of accident insurance ;

{2) the improvement and extension of maternity
assistance ;

(3) insurance against industrial diseases and tuber-

culosis as a step towards insurance against all
forms of sickness ;

(4) the perfectioning of insurance against involun-

tary unemployment ;

(5) the adoption of special forms of endowment

insurance for young workers.

28. The workers’ Associations are required to act as guar-
dians of those they represent in administrative and judicial
suits arising out of accident and social insurance.

The Collective Labour Contracts shall establish, when this
is technically possible, Mutual Sickness Funds, with contri-
butions furnished by employers and workers, to be adminis-
tered by representatives of both bodies, under the super-
vision of the Corporative organs.

20. The assistance of the individuals it represents, whether
members or non-members, is a privilege and a duty of the
professional Associations. The Associations must exercise
directly by their own organs the functions of assistance and
may not delegate them to other bodies or institutes except
for purposes of a general nature transcending the interests
of single categories of producers.

30. The education and instruction, especially the pro-
fessional instruction, of the individuals they represent is one
of the principal duties of the professional Associations . These
Associations are required to work side by side with the
National Welfare Institution {Dopolavoro) and other educa-
tional institutions.

The Charter, as we have seen, provides for the
Collective Labour Contracts. These are completed in

349

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

agreement between employers and employees in the
various categories of work, and they bring down to detail
all the questions of hours, wages, holidays, indemnities,
etc., envisaged in the Charter. The enactment relating
to the Collective Labour Contracts also provides for
the constitution of the Labour Courts to deal with
collective labour disputes. The text points out that
an attempt at conciliation must be made before judg-
ment is passed. The sixteen Appeal Courts of Italy
can function as Labour Courts, and in each of these
courts a body of experts in the problems of production
and labour is set up. Under certain circumstances
the judgment of the Labour Court may be opposed by
recourse to the Court of Cassation. Only legally
recognised Associations may raise actions or be repre-
sented in the Labour Courts and the judgments passed
are valid for all in the category of work and district
interested.

Thanks to these Contracts every workman knows
exactly where he stands. For instance, if a man is
wrongfully dismissed, he reports to his Syndicate :
the Syndicate, if it cannot get redress direct, simply
opens a lawsuit on the basis of the Collective Contract,
and without delay, almost automatically, the plaintiff
gets judgment for his indemnity with costs.

STRIKES AND LOCK-OUTS

The same enactment shows the legal position and
sanctions with regard to strikes and lock-outs. The
Articles dealing with these things read ;

Strikes and lock-outs are illegal.

Employers who without sufficient justification and for the
sole object of obtaining from their employees a modification
of the existing Labour Contracts suspend work in their estab-

350

STATE AND LABOUR

lishments, enterprises or offices, are punished by a fine rang-
ing from ten thousand to one hundred thousand lire.

Employees and workmen who to the number of three or
more, after previous accord, leave off working, or do their
work in a manner calculated to disturb its continuity and
regularity, in order to obtain from their employers different
contracts, are punished by a fine of one hundred to one
thousand lire. The procedure shall be governed by articles
298 and following of the Code of Penal Procedure.

When the authors of the misdemeanour described in the
preceding paragraphs are numerous, the leaders, promoters
and organisers are punished by imprisonment for a period
of not less than one year and of not more than two years,
in addition to the fines laid down in the said paragraphs.

Persons employed by the State or by other public bodies
or by enterprises engaged in a public service or a service of
public necessity who to the number of three or more, after
previous accord, leave off working or do their work in a
manner calculated to disturb its continuity or regularity, are
punished by imprisonment in a special division [reclusione]
for a period ranging from six months to two years ; in
addition they shall be prohibited from holding any public
office for a period of six months. The procedure shall be
governed by articles 298 and following of the Code of Penal
Procedure.

The leaders, promoters and organisers shall be punished
by imprisonment in a special division [reclusione) for a period
ranging from six months to two years ; in addition they shall
be prohibited from holding any public office for a period of
not less than three years.

Persons engaged in public services or services of public
necessity who leave off working in establishments, enterprises
or offices without sufficient justification are punished by im-
prisonment in a special division for a period ranging from
six months to one year and by a fine ranging from five
thousand to one hundred thousand lire ; in addition they
shall be temporarily forbidden from holding any public
office.

351

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

If the action contemplated in the present Article results in
danger to human life, the punishment of imprisonment shall
be in a special division (reclusione) for a period not less than
one year. If such action results in the death of one or more
persons, the punishment of imprisonment shall be in a special
division [reclusione] for a period of not less than three years.

Persons employed by the State or by other public bodies,
or persons engaged by enterprises engaged in public service
or a service of public necessity, and their staffs, who on the
occasion of strikes or lock-outs fail to do all in their power
to bring about the regular continuation and resumption of
a public service or of a service of public necessity shall be
punished by imprisonment for a period ranging from one to
six months.

When the suspension of work on the part of employers or
the abandonment or irregular performance of work on the
part of workmen are for the purpose of putdng constraint
on the will or of influencing the decision of an organ or body
of the State, of the Provinces or of the Communes, or of a
public official the leaders, promoters and organisers shall be
punished by imprisonment in a special division (reclusione)
for a period ranging from three to seven years ; in addition
they shall be prohibited for life from holding any public
office. For other persons the period of special imprisonment
shall be from one to three years and such persons shall be
temporarily prohibited from holding any public office.

Without prejudice to the application of the ordinary rules
of law on civil responsibility for non-fulfilment of a contract
and on the execution of the sentences, employers and workers
who refuse to cany out the decisions of the Labour Courts
shall be punished by simple imprisonment for a period rang-
ing from one month to one year in addition to a fine of one
hundred to five thousand lire.

The leaders of legally recognised unions who refuse to
carry out the decisions of the Labour Court shall be punished
by simple imprisonment for a period ranging from six months
to two years and a fine of two thousand to ten thousand hre,
in addition to deposition from their official position.

352

STATE AND LABOUR

REGIONAL CATEGORIES

The local Syndicates of Workers and their successive
extensions in their categories become District Associa-
tions, Provincial Federations and National Confedera-
tions. There are seven National Confederations and
they represent in their seven categories, the employees’
interests in (i) industry, (2) agriculture, (3) com-
merce, (4) banking, (5) territorial communications,
(6) air transport and (7) intellectual workers. The
employers’ category units end in seven similar National
Confederations — although the intellectual Confedera-
tion is a more liquid unit, in which the demarcation
line of employer and employed is often not easy to
define.

Across the category units of the employers and
employees there cut the units of the Corporations.
The Corporations are composed of seven sections cor-
responding to the seven Confederations of Employers
and the Confederations of Employees. The object of
the Corporations is to co-ordinate and harmonise the
productive possibilities of the nation, to secure the
fullest co-operation between all classes, to settle dis-
putes which affect national welfare and to promote
the social, educational and physical well-being of the
worker. As in the Syndical units so in the Corporations
— employer and employee are on equal representative
footing throughout.

If we imagine the regional category units as perpen-
dicular double-lines (employers and employees) rising
from local Syndicate level and ending at National Con-
federation heights, then we must picture the Corpora-
tion units as horizontal lines traversing the category
perpendiculars at every stage from local Syndical to
^ 353

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

National Confederations. It will be noted that the
horizontal lines therefore make contact not only with
employers and employees in each category, but that
they also form a unifying band between all the cate-
gories. By these contacts it is therefore possible for
the Corporations to co-operate on questions of interest
to employers and employees in any given category at
any given territorial stage ; and it is also possible for
the Corporations to make complete national-wide con-
tacts as between employer and employee at any given
territorial stage — in other words, keep in touch with
totalised district, provincial and national production.

The life force of the Syndical units is derived
from the Labour Charter : syndical life therefore
begins with the masses in their local category units
and ascends finally to the National Confederations.
The vital essence of the Corporations is derived from
the Cabinet and the Capo del Governo : the Corpora-
tive life therefore begins with the State and finally
passes by these horizontal arteries into the masses.

Deriving its policy from the Government and State
through the Minister and Ministry of Corporations,
the next Corporation organ is the National Council
of Corporations, divided into sub-sections correspond-
ing to the Confederation categories. An idea of the
wide shce of Italian national life represented on this
Council and its sub-sections may be got from a
glance at its composition. It includes the Secretary of
the Fascist party, the Ministers of Corporations, of
Home Affairs, and of Agriculture, representatives
of the Syndical Confederations of both employers and
employees ; and at the general meetings of the Coun-
cil there are delegates from the technical departments
of aU the Ministries, representatives of Health and
354

STATE AND LABOUR

Recreation, ex-Servicetnen, War Wounded, institutions,
and so on. This Council is in character deliberative,
judicial and advisory and it issues rules and regulations
for the co-ordination of ail the Syndical units’ collective
activities. Provincial Corporative Councils carry the
work to the Federation level. As a matter of fact it is
at the Provincial Councils that the real work of econo-
mic and social collaboration between employers and
employees is done, and disputes settled.

It can be said that this Fascist endeavour to con-
struct a corporative syndicalist State represents one of
the most complex social-economic experiments ever
attempted on a national scale. It is exceeded in
immensity but not in intricacy by the Soviet experi-
ment, because the Italians have taken on the burden
of reconciling all classes and interests in one smooth-
running national machine. The work is as yet far
from done. Of the seven category Corporations there
is only one which is actually complete, but the Pro-
vincial Corporative Councils, sub-sections of the Cor-
porations and an executive Central Committee of
Corporations fulfill the liaison collaborative func-
tions of the not yet completed category Corporations
with the National Confederations. Any employer
who tries to over-ride the rights of an employee, or
any workers who attempt to put class before country
will rapidly discover that the Corporate State is not
just a thing of paper. The most potent evidence of
the practical, working efficiency of the system is
contained in the fact that it enabled Italy, a rela-
tively poor country, to weather the world crisis,
and to place her on an exceptionally high level as a
producing country, ready for the recovery of world
trade.

355

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

Mussolini’s best known collaborators in building up
the Corporate State were Giuseppe Bottai, a young
Roman Fascist who organised the Ministry until
Mussolini took over the portfolio himself in 1932 ;
Edward Rossoni, a revolutionary Syndicalist who at
one time was a labour agitator in America and who
followed Mussolini at the war intervention campaign,
becoming one of Mussolini’s first Fascists ; and Bruno
Biagi, who has special social insurance theories.

To any reader who wishes to make, in English, a
complete and exhaustive examination of the Fascist
trade-union system in all its complication of detail
I recommend ‘‘ The Italian Corporative State ” by
Dr. Fausto Pitigliani, published by P. S. King & Son,
London. My chapter describes in essential outline
the foundation and framework of the system, and
shows it as part of the historical and political picture
of Fascist Italy : Dr. Pitigliani’s book deals with the
subject technically on a detached Syndical-Economic
basis.

35 ^

CHAPTER III

BACK TO THE LAND

Public Works. Coping Stones instead of Foundation Stones. Ten Tears'
Work. Rural Policy. Mussolini on “ Back to the Land." Bonifica
Integrale. Its aims and extent. Littoria. “ Battle of the Grain."
1933 Victory. “ Battle of Agriculture." Moving to new Conquests.

W HEN first drafting out the scheme and arrange-
ment of these chapters I airily jotted down “ Pub-
lic Works — 2000 words.’* That was an absent-minded
piece of optimism ! A bare catalogue of the public
works carried out during the past eleven years would
more than exhaust the total of words which I have
allowed myself ; a detailed and descriptive summary
would fill a volume, with chapters on ports and har-
bours ; hydraulics and electric power ; speedways
and highways ; railroads and stations ; housing and
hospitals ; land reclamation ; irrigation and canals ;
archaeology and town planning ; schools and stad-
iums ; Colonial development ; earthquake redemp-
tion ; ex-soldiers and imemployed ; distribution of
labour ; afforestation ; the “ battle of the grain ” ;
finance ; and State grants and consortiums.

The regime has accomplished so much under all
these headings that it can be said to have changed the
face of Italy. And yet it is not so much the things
done as the fact that they have been done which iden-
tifies this colossal work with the history of Fascism.
Many of the schemes completed by the Fascist Govern-
ment had been proposed, planned and in many cases

357

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

partly carried out by former democratic-Liberal Gov-
ernments. But this difference is to be noticed : the
pre-Fascist schemes were hindered in their execution by
the rise and fall of Governments because, as we have
seen in the earlier chapters of this book, there was still
regional rivalry and also a general range of rivalry
between industry and agriculture, North and South,
These rivalries found their best means of competitive
action through the political machine. As a result the
desks of Italian engineers and the archives of the Office
of Public Works were fiUed with sound schemes,
approved by one Government but kiboshed by an-
other. In consequence Italy was strewn with partially
completed improvements ; there was no balance of
progress as between North and South ; and the country
suffered.

The first indication that the epoch of “ unfinished
beginnings ” was over and done with was an order by
Mussolini abolishing “ fotmdation-stone ” ceremonies.
In substitution he introduced a “ coping-stone ” ritual.
This rite is performed all over Italy on each April 21
— the day on which is commemorated Italian Labour
Day, the Birth of Rome and the Fascist Levy. The
association of the ideas of all three commemorations
is introduced into the coping-stone rite, thus sym-
bolically linking the accomplishment of the present
in a continuity of thought with the past and with the
future. It also provides a yearly date towards which
every work, either in whole or in defined stages, is
pressed to completion, thus creating a national rhythm
of endeavour and accomplishment.

In his speech on the 1933-4 Budget estimates,
the Minister of Public Works gave some figures on
what had been done during the first ten years of

358

BACi: TO THE LAND

Fascist rule. He said that during that period over
1 8,000,000,000 lire had been devoted to such works.
At the end of 19212 the electric plants of all Italy had
a total horsepower of 1,250,000. There was now
(October 23, 1932) 5,500,000 horsepower ; and
the annual output of electricity had risen from
3,652,200,000 kilowatt-hours to 9,665,000,000. The
length of high-tension lines had passed from 16,000 to
25,500 kilometres, and the number of water-power
reservoirs risen from 54. with a capacity of 142,000,000
cubic metres, to 184 with a capacity of 1,544,000,000
cubic metres. Special concentration on hydro-electric
and thermo-electric plants, artificial lakes and power
distribution is subventioned to about 100,000,000
lire per annum. In return — Italy having no coal in
her soil — the great expense of coal importation is being
steadily reduced.

Eleven thousand kilometres of roadway, the Minister
announced, had been reconditioned and fifty per cent
of the roads of all Italy had been systematised. Six
thousand kilometres of new roads had been constructed,
including 436 kilometres oi autostrade motor speedways.
Five hundred and seventeen kilometres of new railroad
had been laid down and 566 kilometres were under
construction, i ,61 7,000,000 lire had been spent on the
complete modernisation of 82 ports and on preserving
beaches and harbours in 15 Provinces. Two hundred
public buildings had been erected, exclusive of those
destroyed by earthquakes — ^in which latter regard
94 public buildings, 3131 working-class houses with
lodgings for 17,000 people had been put up. Eleven
thousand new schools had been built in 2764 Com-
munes in every part of the land, but specially in the
ill-suppUed South. In housing, 6000 tenement palazzi

359

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

had been erected, containing 50,000 flats with a total
of 193,000 living rooms. 2193 Communes with a total
population of over ten million had been provided
with water by the engineering of new aqueducts at a
cost of more than 1,000,000,000 lire. Innumerable
minor works for the improvement of communal
hygiene had been carried out.

The plans developed as from October 1932 are said
to assure 25 million working days ; and the 1933-4
estimates earmark 1,350,000 lire for the continuation
of public works all over Italy. The official total of
unemployed in Italy at the beginning of October,
19335 was 800,740.

The above data does not include extensive works
carried out in Tripolitania and elsewhere in the
Italian colonies. Ten years ago it was dangerous to
go unescorted beyond the suburbs of Tripoli on to the
encroaching desert dunes. Today there are roads as
straight as Roman swords radiating into the desert
zones where land reclamation is developed in peace
and security no matter how distant from the shelter
of Tripoli.

Despite the varied regional and category develop-
ments indicated by the above general survey of work
accomplished, Mussolini, in conformity with his doc-
trinal principles, considers public works as one great
xmdertaking. And that great undertaking he directs
according to one great internal policy. And that
great internal policy in turn is based on his conviction
that the strength of a nation rests on agriculture. He
is leading Italy “ back to the land.” This does
not, however, mean only leading the nation back
to agriculture. It means developing a strong rural
State, inhabited by a healthy and contented rural
360

BACK TO THE LAND

All idillic Msion of 'iQ^icultiiri.l present dT.\ and tndiiioxial

BACK TO THE LAND

populace, producing enough grain for the nation’s
needs.

Mussolini’s speeches are full of references to the
ruralisation of Italy :

“ To increase the fruitfulness of Italian soil as much as
possible, to elevate the condition of the millions and millions
of countryfolk who work with such sacred tenacity, — there
you have one of the fundamental aims of the Fascist regime.”

“ The wealth of Italy, the stability of the nation and its
future are intimately bound up with the future of Italian
agriculture.”

“ The real fount, the real origin, of all human activity is
the earth.”

“ Only a great agricultural Italy will allow the develop-
ment of a great industrial Italy.”

“ Industrial concentration in cities leads to the sterility of
the population. Monstrous cities with their geometrical
development end up by making a desert all around them ;
and in the desert life dies.”

“ The country people — the glorious infantry of the War
and of the Revolution — will also be the victors in the
Battle of the Land, which is the battle for the richness of
Italy.”

“ The struggle is one for real liberty, — the liberation of the
nation from foreign economic servitude.”

“ I say unto you, O peasants and men of the land, you
are specially near to my spirit.”

“ This old land of Italy can give bread to her sons today
and tomorrow, when once man knows how to harmonise these
elements, — the sun, water, work and science. The hydraulic,
agrarian and sanitary transformation of a region is a long
job which demands the most generous force and labour of
the Government.”

One could go on quoting such phrases for pages on
end.

The principal vehicle for this ruralisation policy is
the Bonifica Integrale — Integral Land Reclamation. It

361

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

is called integral because it differs from earlier land
reclamation schemes in that it encompasses the settle-
ment of colonies on the reclaimed land, with the eleva-
tion of new townships and parishes, the marketing as
well as the cultivation of the crops, the integration of
the new communities into the social and economic
life of the province and the nation, the amelioration
of unemployment, the development of “ internal emi-
gration ” of workers from zone to zone, the settlement
of ex-Servicemen on land grants, the intensive increase
of grain production up to national self-sufficiency and
the co-ordination of all public works towards these
various ends, plus the inclusion of the Corporative
mechanism and all the social, recreational, demo-
graphic, religious and general welfare institutions and
ideas of Fascism. So you can understand how I feel
about trying to compress an adequate picture of this
into the compass of a chapter !

The Bonifica Integrals operates among the rocky hills
of the new Alpine provinces, among the waterless
stretches of south-central Italy, among the once waste-
lands of Sardinia, among the dank acreage of the
Pontine and other marshes — everywhere.

It was only in July 1928 that the laws for the
Bonifica Integrals were formulated and it was not
until July 1929 that they were put in operation. In
September 1929 a Bonifica Integrals Under-Secretary
portfolio was created in the Ministry of Agriculture
with liaisons with the Ministries of Public Works and,
later, of Corporations. The work now in hand ranges
over an area which totals over seven-and-a-half million
acres. To public funds are added private consortiums
with State guarantees. The most conspicuous success
is that of the Pontine Marshes whose reclamation has
36a

BACK TO THE LAND

baffled engineers from the times of Imperial Rome.
The first victory in the war against nature in this zone
was signalised by the institution of the town of Littoria,
which is a reasonably flourishing township of ex-
Servicemen and their families drawn from all parts of
Italy. Laid out as a Roman quadrata, it proudly stands
as a new town, the centre and capital of a new
Commune, amid a network of roads and irrigation
canals, overlooking cultivated fields in a region which
less than seven years ago was a pestiferous, malarial
swamp, haunted by fever-stricken wraiths of neglected
humanity. A new town and Commune, Sabaudia, is
now under course of construction and on September
1933 the Government appointed a special Commissary
in charge of preparing the eventual total recovery of
this notorious Agro Pontino.

Accompanying the Bonifea Integrale is, as I have
said, the work of raising enough grain for Italy’s
internal needs. This “ Battle of the Grain ” had its
zero hour in June 1925. Italy’s requirements amount
to about 75 million quintals of grain. Of this total
Italy produced 44 million in 1922, importing the
balance. In 1925, when the “ Battle ” started, it im-
ported 65^ million. The 1932 crop marked a victori-
ous conclusion with 75,151,000 quintals. This general
increase of production has been accompanied by a
general all-round agricultural increase. In May 1933
it was announced that the ” Battle of the Grain ” was
to be transformed into “ The Integral Battle of
Agriculture.” Fascist Italy has accordingly moved to
the assault of the second line of trenches in its great
war for the ruralisation of Italy.

3 %

CHAPTER IV
SELF-PROTECTION

Rome of the Militia. A Check on Secret Societies. Provincial Control.
Fuorusciii. Defence of the State Tribunal. New Penal Code. Press
Laws Curbing Opposition. Liberty of the Press. Mussolini's Views —
Fascist Journalism. Its Opportunities.

I N the vast bulk of Fascist legislation there are a
number of juridical measures and State provisions
which can be considered as one group with a character
clearly defined as protective. These laws guarantee
the free development of the Fascist Revolution against
all efforts which might be made, inside or outside the
State, to frustrate either the material or spiritual ends
of the regime. These measures are as follows :

(i) Laws constituting the Blackshirt Militia, whose
formal title is the Volunteer Militia for
National Security, and generally known by
their initials M.V.S.N,

(2) The Law against secret societies.

(3) Laws for the organisation and control of Govern-
ment servants.

(4) Laws against the fuorusciii (political exiles).

(5) Laws constituting the Special Defence of the
State Tribunal and the new Penal Code.

(6) Public safety laws.

(7) Press laws.

National Militia. The National Militia, accord-
ing to the decree of August 4, 1924, forms part of the

3^4

SELF-PROTECTION

armed forces of the State. Its members swear fidelity
to the Duce and to the King. The Duce of Fascismo
is the Duce of the Militia. All ranks are inscribed
members of the Party. This force has very varied
duties.

It has political duties which may be defined as
work in co-operation with the poHtical and general
departments of the police, and special detachments
for frontier duties.

It has “ military educative duties.” This consists
of training and instructing the Balilla and Avanguard-
isti, and the University Student Fascists — the three
units from which with the passage of time the ranks of
the National Militia are recruited. No direct recruits
are now taken for service in the National Militia with-
out having passed through some of the above channels.
The Militia also gives pre-military instruction to its
members. This means that thousands of young men
are already trained in the elements of soldiering before
they are called on to serve their period of training with
the regular army in course of the conscription levies.

It has direct military duties. These consist of
Blackshirt infantry battalions and cycle corps, terri-
torial anti-aircraft defence and permanent Blackshirt
Legions who operate in the colonial areas of Tripoli-
tania. The infantry battalions include ” shock troop
units ” which are distributed among the divisions of
the Italian regular army.

It has detachments for “ special duty.” For this
special work there are distinct branches devoted to
the Forest services which includes preservation of wood-
lands and gamekeepers’ duties ; Railway Militia for
the maintenance of communications, and of order on
board trains ; Dockyard Militia, Post Office Militia

365

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

and Highway Militia, the last of which performs duties
similar to those of the motor-traffic police in other
countries. In keeping with the classical spirit of the
Revolution, the old Roman nomenclature of legions,
cohorts and centurions is used. The whole body or
any section of it can be mobilised : to maintain public
order ; for reviews or parades ; for instructive pur-
poses at the manoeuvres, games and exercises of the
Balilla and Avanguardisti ; in cases of public calamity
to lend aid ; and in the event of calamities following
volcanic eruptions, to organise the hygienic and general
succour to the population in the stricken zone.

The “ Golden Book ” of the Militia bears ample
testimony of the prompt and willing assistance which
it has given on many occasions in coming with well-
organised efficiency to the help of the people. Not
only has this spirit of giving organised help been
awakened, but the readiness to make individual sacri-
fice in coming to the assistance of others is shown in
the frequent accounts of acts involving the saving of
life by Militiamen and Avanguardisti and Balilla.

The Militia, in short, guarantees the operation of all
public services. This is now a peaceful continuation
of the work which, as we have seen in the earlier sec-
tions of this volume, was performed against heavy
odds when the country was in the grip of subversive
elements.

Secret Societies. The law against secret societies
regulates the activities of all associations and institutes
in such a way that their constitutions, statutes, rules
and regulations, list of membership, committees, and
all other information about their organisation, aims
and activities, must be communicated to the police
authorities. As the existence of any political non-
366

SELF-PROTECTION

Fascist active institution is prohibited, this law ensures
complete Government control over assembled associa-
tions. The failure of any institution to register its
particulars as above noted puts itself automatically
outside the law. All institutions depending from the
State, provincial or local services must and can only be
developed under the tutelage of the authorities. Any
possible infiltration of masonic or other notions is by
these means immediately recognised and rigorously
repressed.

General Control. The administrative machine
is such that complete control is exercised over the
remotest areas of the peninsula. With powers which
emanate from the central State authority the pivot
man in the Provinces is the Prefect. There is no elec-
tive provincial council. All affairs are in the hands of
officials appointed by the Government, by the Party,
or by the Prefect. In fact the Prefect is a vice-Capo
del GovernO) and is appointed by Royal Decree through
the Home Office. He is responsible directly to Musso-
lini, and his influence on the political and military life
of his provincial area is profound. When Mussolini
wishes to impress any warning or to give any special
praise, or wishes to have special knowledge of the spirit
existing in any Province of the kingdom, it is through
the Prefects that he makes his contacts. The average
population of a Province numbers about 500,000 souls.

Below the Province comes the Commune, which may
be either a rural area or a city or a town — a town
Commune of over 10,000 inhabitants and equipped with
all public services being designated Cittd. The whole
system of a locally elected council and mayor {Sindaco)
has been substituted by the office of Podestd — a medi-
aeval term of local dictatorship. In his person the

3^7

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

Podestd combines the powers of the earlier Sindaco and
council put together. The Podestd is nominated by
Royal Decree through the provincial Prefect or through
the Home Office according to the importance of his
charge. In large cities the Podestd may be assisted by
a ConsuUa which is appointed by the Central Govern-
ment. In the case of Naples and a few other great
centres there are variations to the actual title given to
the ConsuUa of a community, but the system of cen-
tralised control from Rome is the same. The city of
Rome, as the capital of Italy, is under a Govematorato
whose office is national.

I have included this administrative network of the
regime under the general heading of Self-Protection,
but in this instance it is not alone for the protection
of the State or for the control of the people that the
administration is so organised. It is also in order that
the spirit of the Revolution, as maintained by its cen-
tral authorities, should have a channel for spreading
its intentions, wishes and dictates.

Fuorusciti. According to the Fuorusciti Law of
31st January, 1926, any citizen who commits, or aids
and abets the commission of deeds abroad directed
towards disturbing public order in the kingdom of
Italy loses his citizenship. By the same law a citizen
abroad also forfeits his citizenship if he works to the
damage of Italian interests or besmirches the good
name and prestige of Italy, even if his behaviour does
not constitute an actual crime. The procedure for
declaring anyone d.fuoruscito is carried out by a com-
mission composed of magistrates specially convened
by the Home Office in concert with the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs. To the loss of citizenship sequestra-
tion and confiscation of property can be added. This
368

SELF-PROTECTION

is done in such manner as not to damage the present
or heritable interests of innocent members of the
family who may be still in Italy or abroad.

Defence of the State Tribunal. The Defence of
the State Tribunal is a species of court-martial.
General Officers of the Army, Navy, Air Force and
National Militia can be called on to form part of the
Court, which in general is composed of five judges
selected from the Consuls (colonels) of the Militia.
This tribunal exercises the power of giving the death
penalty, and sentences up to thirty years’ imprison-
ment. The death sentence is pronounced for :

(1) Attempts against the life, the integrity and the per-
sonal liberty of the King, the Regent, the Queen, the Crown
Prince and the Capa del Gaverno.

(2) Attempts against the independence and unity of the
Fatherland.

(3) The violation of secrets concerning the security of the
State.

(4) Attempts against internal peace (armed revolt, civil
war, sabotage and looting).

On its ordinary civil and criminal side the whole
Penal Code of Italy has been reformed in keeping
with the Fascist doctrine of the supremacy of the State
over the individual. The death sentence has also
been reintroduced for common crimes of a murderous
nature.

The reform was developed by Signor Rocco and is
based on the principles of the late Professor Enrico
Ferri, one of the original exponents of the positive
school of criminology. The personality of the prisoner
is considered along with his crime, together with the
psychic and moral atmosphere surrounding the crime.
It allows the judge a wider scope in applying punish-
3 A g 6 g

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

ment ; and that punishment is regulated on a reforma-
tory basis according to the individual. Solitary confine-
ment has been abolished. In prison educative labour
has been introduced by which the prisoner pays partly
for his own maintenance. His pay is regulated by the
Syndicates in order to avoid competition with free
labour. The wages of the prisoner are divided into
three parts — one-third goes to the State, one-third to
the victim of his crime and one-third to the prisoner
on his release. The jury system has been modified into
a jury of experts.

The following seven principles are embodied in the
new Penal Code, which, after seven years of labour,
constitutes one of the greatest reforms ever made in
the Italian juridical school :

To overcome in the practical field the difierences between
the classical and the anthropological schools of criminology.

To strengthen punishments for graver crimes where the
pre-Fascist code was considered inadequate.

To safeguard the State more efficiently at home, abroad,
and internationally ; to punish crimes against the Father-
land in accordance with Fascist social conceptions.

To safeguard the family and public morals.

To safeguard the integrity and future of the race.

To protect religious sentiments, especially those of the
Catholic cult.

To effect public economy by a simplification of local pro-
cedure.

Press Laws. The Press in Fascist Italy is circum-
scribed by legislative provisions calculated to “ re-
conduct it within its just limits of liberty, and to guar-
antee the State against possible aggression through it,
to restore journalism to its national educative func-
tions and to make it responsible in a penal, financial
and political sense for its own actions.” The exercise

370

SELF-PROTECTION

of governmental control over the Press is carried out in
four ways :

First : The Prefects have the power of preventive
sequestration of newspapers, reviews, etc,, which they
may consider damaging or dangerous for public order
or public morality. The general kind of material
which leads to the sequestration of newspapers and the
possible punishment of those responsible for their
publication is officially defined as follows :

“ False or tendentious news wloich hinders the
diplomatic action of the Government in its foreign
relations, or damages national credit at home or
abroad ; or causes unjustified alarm in the popula-
tion ; or arouses disturbances of public order in what-
soever manner. Articles, comments, notes, headlines,
illustrations and sketches which excite the commission
of crime ; or cause hatred or disobedience of the laws
or of the orders of the authorities ; or cause disturb-
ance to the discipline of those attached to a public
service ; or favour the interests of foreign States, or
foreign public or private aims to the damage of Italian
interests ; or which vilify the Fatherland, the King,
the Royal Family, the Pontiff, or the religion and in-
stitutions of the State and of friendly Powers.”

Copies of the newspapers are seen by the Prefect
previous to or as soon as issued from the presses and
their withdrawal from sale before widespread distribu-
tion mitigates the offence in minor cases. After a cer-
tain number of sequestrations the journal is liable to
be closed altogether.

Second ; Measures for fixing the political, material
and financial responsibility of the newspapers on to
the actual editor of the paper and not on to a “ man
of straw.”

37 ^

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

Third : Reinforcement of newspaper guarantees
concerning financial stability and sense of responsi-
bility.

And fourth : The creation of a professional status
and spirit among journalists by means of a Professional
Roll. Only those inscribed in this roll are allowed to
exercise the profession of journalism.

Those who are on the roll enjoy protection and
privileges affecting conditions of work, pensions and
rights unequalled by any other body of journalists the
world over.

It will be noticed that these measures, looked at as
a means of protecting the regime, place a formid-
able penal barrier against any violent insurrectional
attempt to overthrow the Government. The heavy
sentences which the Fascist courts can, and do, inflict
are — in accordance with the principles of the reformed
Code — not mechanically regulated as given punish-
ments to flit given crimes ; but vary in accordance
with (i) the political circumstances surrounding the
case, (2) the intentions, character or opportunities of
the accused person, (3) the effect, actual or potential,
which the commission of the crime has or might have
on the smooth running of the Party machine in its task
of guaranteeing the undisturbed political, moral and
productive life of Italy.

The Party, regime and State form an inseparable
trinity which is held sacred. All its measures are
accepted as beneficent, axiomatically. Those who
oppose the measures therefore place themselves out-
side the pale of pure reason, presumably.

Opposition may not necessarily be insurrectional.
It may be merely critical in a theoretically destructive

572

SELF-PROTECTION

sense. The danger of such a thing is checked before
development. The laws to prevent “ secret societies,”
as will be seen from the wording of the Act quoted
above, really prevent the formation of any unregistered
club or institution with an undeclared membership
and programme. This successfully truncates any
collective criticism outside the bosom of the Party
councils, while the Prefecture system, backed by the
special police, by the National Militia and by the
secret OVRA informers, make a network of observation
and control well equipped speedily to discover indivi-
dual murmurers or covert opponents.

As for the Press — it performs a function totally
different to that which it exercises in other cmmtries,
with the exception of National-Socialist Germany and,
to a certain extent, Turkey and Russia. The Soviet
Press does on occasion publish self-devastating criti-
cism and facts on internal administrative affairs and
officials — the Central Government using such informa-
tion, plus public feeling aroused, as a point of depar-
ture for enquiry and action. In Italy the Press is
a systematised vehicle of Government propaganda.
Journalism in Italy is not a profession : it is, we are
told, a “ mission.” Every journalist is presumed to
do his work with a consuming passions ” which dis-
places all ordinary newspaper conceptions of “ news
values.”

In answer to the accusation that Fascism has
smothered the “ freedom of the Press,” Mussolini has
replied by asserting that “ the Italian Press is the
freest in the whole world.” In support of this he says,
“ Newspapers elsewhere are under the order of pluto-
cratic groups, of parties and of individuals ; news-
papers elsewhere are reduced to the wretched job of

373

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

marketing exciting news, the continued reading of
which ends by causing a kind of drug saturation on the
public, with symptoms of debility and imbecility ; news-
papers elsewhere are grouped in the hands of a very
few individuals who look on a newspaper as nothing
but an industry, like the steel or leather industry.”

Having thus dismissed the foreign Press, Mussolini
in his declaration turned again to Itahan journalism,
which he declared to be free “ because it serves only
one cause and one regime ; because, within the ambit
of the laws of the regime, it can exercise and exercises
functions of control, criticism and propulsion.”
‘Mussohni then hkened the Fascist Press to an
orchestra : “I consider Italian Fascist journalism as
an orchestra. The ‘ keynote ’ is common. And this
keynote is not given by the Government through its
Press offices. It is soimded by Fascist journalism it-
self. But given the keynote, there is a diversity of in-
struments. Every newspaper ought to become a
definite instrument, individualised and recognisable in
the great orchestra.”

Crime features, Italian scandals (Fascist or other-
wise) " human interest ” stories, suicides and gossip,
except in rare cases, have a very minor place in the
Italian Press, when given at all.

On the other hand competition has been crippled
and it is seldom that a paper goes out of its routine
way to indulge in any enterprise to make its pages
more readable. Save for feuilleton articles and parish
news, every paper is the same. No risks are taken with
the “ keynote.” The newspapers of modern Italy
resolve themselves into a daily propaganda organ for
the praise of Fascism and all its doings ; for the ex-
altation of Italian achievement, individual or national;
374

SELF-PROTECTION

for eulogies on Mussolini ; for carefully timed and
regulated bursts of more or less violent criticism
against outsiders who may fall foul of Fascist views ;
for denunciations of foreign newspapers when they
say hostile things and copious quotations from foreign
newspapers, however obscure, when they say pleasing
things. Every paper appears to be a free pool into
which its neighbours can dip, as the same news item
may be followed unchanged as it is “ lifted ” from one
paper to another. Descriptions of Party ceremonies
with full lists of the names of “ those present ” fill the
principal pages. And with an unfailing regularity,
which reveals either a most remarkable universal con-
science or else the unsleeping surveillance of the
Government Press Bureaus, the same selection of
Fascist news has each day the same place of honour on
the front page of every newspaper, with the result that
one paper resembles another like different editions of
a hymnal.

All this shows that it is necessary to recognise that
the Italian Press must be considered in relation to its
own special criteria. It is an organ of the State, dedi-
cated to the regime. To be appreciated at its inten-
tional value it has to be looked at in the light of
the “ doctrines ” already elucidated. It will then be
realised that the Press in Italy has theories of patriotic
service which, in the hands of imaginative men with
a knowledge of the world and its ways, could transcend
journalism. The Fascist Press has unplumbed oppor-
tunities of world leadership. At the present time it is
dedicating itself to the blatant pumping of a sense of
national pride into “ the man in the street.”

375

CHAPTER V
, THE FIGHTING FORCES

Unity of Command. Military and Political Co-ordination. Organisa-
tion of the Country for War. Civil Mobilisation. Army Reform. RSle
of the Blackshirt Militia. Navy Reform. Mobility and Speed. Rise of
the Air Force. Civil Aviation. Aviation Records. The Agents of
Reconstruction. Balbo's Work and Theories. New-found Prestige.

T he fighting strength of the Italian nation has been
revolutionised by Mussolini. He has seen to it
that the conditions against which Italy had to contend
during the last war will not be repeated. Apart from
a complete reorganisation of the three forces— army,
navy and air — his reconstruction has been such that
(i) there can no longer be any conflict between
political leaders and army leaders, (2) there can be no
waste of man-power through skilled artisans serving in
the trenches while shirkers escape into “ cooshy ”
jobs, (3) there can be no detachment of service in time
of war as between the fighting forces and the rest of
the nation. Civilians as well as soldiers will be mobil-
ised, and each individual has his or her allotted place
in an united effort, and (4) through an exaltation of
patriotic and civil service the moral and the physique
of the army is no longer imperilled by the bureau-
cratic mechanism and routine indifference which was
hitherto characteristic of conscript troops.

Formerly the Chief of Staff of the army in peace
time became the Commander-in-Chief in war time.
Mussolini has created an office senior to that of Chief
of Staff. This is the office of the Chief of General Staff—
37 ^

THE FIGHTING FORCES

and the officer holding this position is responsible
solely and directly to the Capo del Governo. Under
the control of the Chief of General Staff are three Chiefs
of Staff for the three forces of land, sea and air. This
system, while giving to each of these forces autonomy
of command, links them together under a supreme
command, above whom is only the Capo del Governo.
In this way the political power of the nation, personi-
fied in the Capo del Governo, who is cognisant of the
international and internal situation of the country, is
co-ordinated with the fighting forces, so that all con-
flicts between political and military policies are
avoided.

The Chief of the General Staff, under the direction
and in harmony with the Capo del Governo, prepares
the fighting forces for their work, but always utilising
the consultative and technical functions of the Ministry
of War and the Army Council. The Minister of War
presides over the Army Council, which is otherwise
composed of the Chiefs of Staff, or one of them acting
for aU, and Army Corps or Divisional Commanders,
selected each year in rotation. In time of war the
Army Council ceases to function and all powers and
responsibilities are assumed by the Gommander-in-
Chief.

But this reform for unifying in harmony the head of
the Government and the head of the Army does not
complete Mussolini’s conception of military co-ordina-
tion, His aim has been also to harmonise all the com-
plicated aspects and problems of a nation at war. He
has recognised that nowadays it is not alone armies
and fleets which fight, but everyone — workmen,
women, scientists, artisans, bankers, farmers, railway-
men, in short aU classes and all categories. To co-

377

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

ordinate all these activities there has been created a
Supreme Mixed Commission of Defence which has
deliberative and consultative committees. The delib-
erative committee under the chairmanship of the Capo
del Governo, in his capacity of Prime Minister, consists
of nine Ministers — Foreign Affairs, Home Affairs, Fin-
ance, War, Colonies, Navy, Air, Communications and
National Economy. The Consultative Committee in-
cludes representatives of the armed forces and of all the
productive forces of the nation, namely, the Army,
Navy, and Air Councils and the Committee of National
Mobilisation.

This last-named committee is composed of the
Chiefs of Staff, the General Manager of the Banca
d' Italia and high representatives of Railways, Mercan-
tile Marine, and technical, agricultural, economic and
cultural associations, which are in turn linked into
the Corporative system. The Committee of National
Mobilisation is the hierarchy for putting into practice
the Law for the Organisation of the Nation for War.

The link with the Corporative system automatically
causes contact with the Party elements which are dove-
tailed into the Syndicates ; and by means of the system
the value and potentialities of every man in Italy as a
combative unit can be gauged, and no doubt is
gauged. It is one of the duties of the Prefect to know
these classifications within his Province. Accordingly,
when a state of war is declared, the mobilisation of the
fighting forces is accompanied by a mobilisation of the
civil population in accordance with the 1925 Law on
the Organisation of the Nation for War. By this law
all citizens, irrespective of position, sex or physique,
are obliged to answer the call and give their aid for the
“ moral and material defence of the nation.” The

378

THE FIGHTING FORCES

text of this bill, not presented to the Chamber until
1931, shows that all citizens not liable to military ser-
vice from the ages of sixteen to seventy, including
women, are under the obligation “ to contribute to the
defence and resistance of the nation with the same
spirit and devotion and sacrifice as the fighting men.”
They should all obey the orders given them by the
local authorities and by special Committees of Civil
Resistance to be set up in the various provincial centres,
and should at the same time abstain from any act
which might minimise the country’s war effort and
reduce expenditure and consumption to the narrowest
limits. This civil mobilisation is to follow immediately
any order of general mobilisation. Unjustified or dis-
obedient abandonment of work or breach of discipline
on the part of the persons so mobilised will be con-
sidered as desertion in time of war and dealt with as
such. The place and duty of every man and woman
is known — be it in the army, in a factory, in clerical,
farming, hospital, transport work or in munitions, etc.,
and Prefects are invested with rights to co-operate with
the Army and Government to see that everyone is
allocated according to book. State supervision over
the Corporations ensures that the full productive
possibilities of the country are diverted to the needs
of war andtthat capitalists do not corner material at
the expense of the nation nor that employees extort
wages incommensurate with the standards of what is
received by the soldiers exposed to the perils of combat.

Under Mussolini the Army is given a high and hon-
oured place ; its traditions and glories restored and
extolled ; all partisan tendencies are eliminated ; and
the F ascist p arty is its champion. Of the Army Musso-
lini has said : “ The Army is the sure and unbreakable

379

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

guarantee of the destinies of the Fatherland,” and
“For this, I insist that the Army be faithful to its in-
corruptible traditions, which have the following main
points ; rigorous abstention from all political activity,
open or hidden ; a high sense of duty and an iron dis-
cipline ; cordial relations with the other armed forces
of the State ; and, above all, absolute dedication to
King and Country.”

Under Fascism the duration of military service
(technically) is from twenty-one years old, instead of
twenty as under the former regimes, until fifty-five,
instead of fifty. This allows an extra year for that pre-
military training which the Blackshirts have perfected
for the building up of the individual moral ; and it
also gives an extra five years (again of course techni-
cally) towards the end of a man’s physical fitness, which
facilitates the disciplinary aspect of the civic mobilisa-
tion law above mentioned. The actual time served
with the colours is eighteen months, but for reasons of
national finance and for other reasons of internal
economy and foreign policy only a relatively small
proportion of the citizens serve the full eighteen months’
period. Many serve only nine, six or three months —
the last being practically equivalent to exemption.
The annual levy of men who have reached twenty-one
years of age therefore varies ; the figure is round about
200,000 men.

The pre-military training, on a volunteer basis,
begins with the children’s and youths’ organisations —
the Balilla, Avanguardisti, etc., which will be duly
described — so that the army recruits, or a large per-
centage of them, answer their call to the colours, not
as presumably unwilling conscripts, but as men fully
cognisant of the patriotic implication of their enforced
380

THE FIGHTING FORCES

service. The University Fascist corps do the same sort
of work for the officer classes. In short the volunteer
spirit is superimposed on a conscript army. The idea
of identifying the Fascist Revolution with the resusci-
tation of the glories of the Regular Army and the
elimination of the danger of any breach between the
Regular Army and the Revolution forces, is provided
for by the employment of Great War veterans as in-
structors in both units and by the incorporation of
Blackshirt Militia. In every Army Infantry Brigade
there is a battalion of Fascist Militia as shock troops.
In the event of war the Fascist Militia as a whole
would be employed as shock troops, alongside the
regular troops, as anti-aircraft units and as a force to
ensure the smooth running of internal services.

The Italian Regular Army being an army based on
universal conscription, it will be seen that the fact of a
National Militia cannot add to its potential numbers.
It adds instead — or at least such is the profession — to
its efficiency and spirit.

The organic aim in the new army is mobility and
elasticity. For reasons of cash and terrain, mechanisa-
tion in its heavier forms is not encouraged, but speedy
means of transport and concentration are developed to
the utmost.

The Army, being levied from all parts of Italy, is also
used as a vehicle for mixing up men from north and
south and for letting men from every province know
the Italy of some other province — one of the methods
for cancelling the last traces of the complicated inheri-
tance described in the earlier chapters of this book.

The only other armed national unit is the Royal
Regiment of Carabinieri, the highest disciplined and
finest body of men in the larger forces of Italy. The

381

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

Carabinieri^ — ^whose uniform with its three-cornered
hat and cut-away blue tunic with red pipings is
familiar to every visitor to Italy — have always stood
outside Party strife. The duties of this corps may be
likened to that of the Federal Police in America, save
that it is decentralised and its patrol-men are on duty
in every street throughout the kingdom. During the
difficult times of 1919 onwards this unit remained
sternly neutral as between the confficting non-Govern-
ment forces, and today it serves the Fascist regime
with all the traditional fidelity which marked its service
in other times.

The Navy has received the particular attention of
the Fascist Government. The pre- military organisa-
tions of the Militia include naval detachments in
which the traditions of the sea are exploited for the
efficiency of the modern “ sea-mindedness” of the
rising generations and the “ future glories ” of the
Navy and the nation.

On its material side the Navy has been also reorgan-
ised in accordance with new strategical and tactical
principles and within the limits of restricted finance.
Battleships of the former 22,000 tons type have been
cancelled from the building programmes, and old
battleships have been scrapped, together with all craft
the least out of date. The heaviest unit in the reformed
navy is 10,000 tons. Lightness, speed, quick striking
power, up-to-date technical equipment and efficiency
oi personnel are the qualities now sought.

The distribution of the Navy has also been wholly
reorganised under the Fascist Government. The
fleet of Italy now consists of two swift-moving squad-
rons. The first squadron comprises a division with
382

THE FIGHTING FORCES

three light armoured cruisers and a flotilla of scouts ;
and a second division of three 10,000 tons heavy-
armoured crmsers, with a scout flotilla led by vessels
capable of touching 34 knots. This group is the
nerve centre of the new fleet.

The second squadron consists of a first division of
light cruisers, and a second division of cruisers and
cruiser scouts — handy formations of 5000-ton vessels
capable of well over 30 knots.

The two squadrons are stationed respectively in the
Tyrrhenian sea and the Eastern Mediterranean, with
headquarters at La Spezia and Taranto, The Adriatic
is patrolled by a light cruiser division and a flotilla of
destroyers, with another destroyer flotilla held in
reserve.

These important changes from the former navy were
made in 1932 and they mark a decisive phase in long
contemplated reform carried out only after severe
manoeuvre tests. The divisions which have now en-
tered the lines are the fruits of the Government’s
pohcy of securing the greatest possible efficiency at the
least possible cost — quality not numbers counting.
This reformation has been accompanied by the intro-
duction of a new school of naval strategy and tactics
based on the possibilities of the new formations.

“ Ancient Rome on the Sea ” was the theme selected
by Mussolini for his series of lectures delivered at the
foreigners’ course at the 1926 session of Perugia Uni-
versity — a series which he concluded with these words ;
“ It can therefore be affirmed that Rome was also
powerful on the sea and that that power was the
result of long sacrifice, unbreakable tenacity and will.
These virtues, which served for our yesterdays, wiU
serve for our tomorrows and for always.”

3^3

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

In the Aviation Arm the change is so vast that it
cannot be called a reform but a creation. Long before
he came into power Mussolini as editor of the Popolo
P Italia insisted on the necessity of creating not only
great air fleets for the defence of Italy, for the develop-
ment of communications and for the political advan-
tages which such aviation strength would bring in
its wake, but he also emphasised the desirability of
fostering the “ air-mindedness ” of the rising genera-
tions. No sooner was he in power than he set about
revolutionising this branch of activity. The story is
best told in a few figures. When Fascism took over,
the Air Force was a subsidiary arm very much under
an Under-Secretary or Commissary. Italy then had
76 efficient machines, 500 men between officers and
other ranks. And it had no civil aviation. The Air
Force is now the Royal Air Force under an indepen-
dent and most up-to-date Ministry. It operates as an
autonomous arm, save of course for the supreme dis-
positions of the General Staff commanding the
cohesion of all fighting forces. The force has today
some 1500 machines, 22,193 flying officers and other
ranks. Civil aviation now covers a network of 30,000
kilometres with 74 machines and 88 pilots. The latest
available statistics, those for 193a, show that civil
machines carried 170,000 passengers and covered a
flying distance of 20,500,000 kilometres. Since its
foundation in 1926 it has carried in six years about
170,000 passengers in 500,000 kilometres of flying
with only eight accidents verified ; and its inter-
national connections link it up in regular runs to
Gibraltar and Barcelona ; Zurich ; Munich and
Berlin ; Vienna ; Sofia ; Athens and Constantinople ;
Malta, Tripoli and Tobruk ; Tunis. Latest develop-
3^4

THE FIGHTING FORCES

ments tend to intensify the trans-Alpine routes to
Germany,

Before 1924 Italy held no international speed, dis-
tance or category records. Since 1924 it has held 25
various world records, including the transatlantic
mass flight of 12 seaplanes Rome-Brazil in 1930 ; the
world speed record of 426.5 miles per hour set up by
Warrant Officer Francesco Agello at Desenzano on
April 10, 1933, beating by a narrow margin the
British record of 407.5 miles per hour achieved by
Flight-Lieutenant Stainforth at the 1931 Schneider
race, Isle of Wight ; and the mass double trans-
atlantic flight Rome-Ghicago-Rome of 1933.

The reconstruction of the reformed Army and Navy
was unostentatiously carried out to the orders of
Mussolini by men like the late Marshal Diaz, General
de Giorgio, Admiral Thaon de Revel and by the
present Navy Minister Admiral Sirianni ; but Musso-
lini’s will for the creation of a strong Air Force has been
developed under the more spectacular auspices of
Italo Balbo. Italo Balbo, fighting Blackshirt, military
leader of the March on Rome, member of the Revolu-
tionary Quadrumvirate, General in the Fascist Vol-
unteer Militia, General in the Italian Air Force, 33
years old when appointed Air Minister in 1929, is the
nearest living being to a Renaissance warrior that I
know of in modern Italy. Courteous when he likes,
unscrupulous, daring others by himself setting a stan-
dard of daring, good-looking in a swaggering way,
romantic but practical, loyal but independent, eager
but balanced, full of bravado but eager to praise, im-
placable against his enemies, in love with life but
always challenging death, suave but hard, admired
but feared, a believer in the sword rather than in

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

palaver, jealous of his country and ambitious for its
greatness as a fighting nation with an armed peace
among its neighbours, too blunt for diplomacy and too
impetuous for statesmanship, and bane of politicians
and an outspoken critic in council — these are some of
the characteristics which go towards the complex of
this extraordinary man who is the organiser and leader
of Italian aviation.

He took to the air and to all the machinery of flying
with the eager zest that would surely have marked his
Ferrara mediaeval ancestors had some power revealed
to them a fighting plane as substitute for axe and
sword in their wars against Venice. His faith in the
necessity of an extra strong Air Force has been almost
prophetic. To prove his theories Balbo a year or so
ago organised air manoeuvres which mimicked a
sudden mass air attack on all Italy ; and he showed
that the peninsula was indeed vulnerable. Within
forty-eight hours he had paralysed all the tactical,
strategical, economic and administrative nerve centres
of the country. All the anti-air forces and devices
available were ranged against the attackers ; but he
showed that they were about as much use as a revolver
against a swarm of wasps. His demonstration was to
prove — incidentally for the benefit of Italian delegates
to disarmament conferences — that the only real
defence of Italy lies in the air itself — that invading
planes had to be met by hordes of fighting planes
whose defence was attack. He is vigorously un-
favourable towards lighter-than-air craft, and the once
vaunted semi-dirigibles which brought Italy both glory
and chagrin imder the exploits of the great and latterly
much maligned General Nobile, have no place what-
soever in the Italian air service, military or civil.

THE FlGHTim FORCES

Of the Air Force personnel General Balbo recently
said ; “ The fervour, the spirit of sacrifice, the high
grade of endeavour, and the efficiency of Italian air-
men can never be well enough known or magnified.
They give themselves to the cause of Fascist wings as
if it were a religious vocation.”

All three branches of the Italian forces of land, sea
and sky, have certainly acquired new-found prestige
under Fascism.

CHAPTER VI

TEACHING THE YOUNG IDEA

The Gentile Reform. Versus Cultural Idealism. Italian History Super-
emphasized. Religious Teaching. School Control and Extension. Pro-
fessors" Oath. Balilla. Welfare Work. Summer Camps. Sport.
Dopolavoro. Olympic Standards, Workers' Recreation. Record of
Progress.

T he education of children was one of the earliest
questions confronted by the Fascist regime. A
complete reform of the scholastic system has been
carried out — a reform which, however, has been
developed slowly from within the old administrative
and curriculum framework. The principles of educa-
tion on the other hand have been revolutionised. The
name of the philosopher Giovanni Gentile stands pre-
eminent in this work. He was an early academic
recruit to Fascism, believing that Fascism was the
realisation of the Liberal conception — the “ actualism”
of a democratic doctrine which had become dead-
ended in its forms of practice. His spirit was always
a little apart from the exuberances of the Party ; but
he was early nominated Minister of Public Instruction
by Mussolini, and during the time he held that office
he put the hall-mark of his personality on the Italian
educational system.

Under the Fascist Government schools are no longer
looked on as public institutions for the benefit of the
individual citizens. Instead they represent the means
of fulfilling the right and duty of the State to give to
the rising generations instruction and education

388

TEACHING THE TOUNG IDEA

answering national ends. The material and positive
conception of life has been changed for what is con-
sidered an ethical and cultural idealism. Children
are prepared to confront life and not just to be able to
■win certificates for answering questions which test the
memory and not the reason or sentiment. They are
also, from their earliest days, taught to appreciate the
ethical and cultural things of life. And needless to
say, they are carefiilly imbued with a particular sense
of the “ destiny ” of Italy, the part which Fascism
plays towards the furtherance of national ideals, and
the supreme rdle of Mussolini as the champion of their
country.

The first act of reform was the restoration of religious
teaching. In general practice it is of course the
national religion of Catholicism which is followed, but
it is the fact of religious instruction, unspecified, which
is the important point in the change. Provision is
made for the observances of the very small and scat-
tered non-Catholic minorities.

Obligatory elementary education has been extended
to the age of fourteen. The last year of those whose
scholastic instruction is to end at that age is organised
so that it becomes almost technical schoolwork —
practical handling of tools with a great range of choice
from art work to engineering or wireless or farming or
accoimtancy. The boys are taught to respect the
dignity of manual work. To be a skilled artisan — a
man who can solve problems or invent or make things
■ — ^is looked on in the elementary popular schools as a
greater thing than to yearn for a “ white collar ” job.
The girls in their last elementary school year get a
very complete training in domestic economy and
hygiene. The hours of study are broken with lessons

3S9

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

in choral singing and with visits to art galleries and,
in Rome, to the Forums. The children are taught that
the masterpieces of Imperial and Renaissance Italy
are their very own heritage and trust.

Another part of the reform touches not the scholars
but the schoolmasters. No one but a professed Fascist
can hope to continue in his career as an elementary
teacher. In the higher educational institutions and
in the universities this rule has not been so rigorously
insisted on. Several attempts have been made in the
past to force the hands of the professorial class by
demanding written confessions of political faith or at
least their signature to such documents — but, with
exceptions, these teachers of higher specialised sub-
jects have been left at their work undisturbed.

In October 1931 the Italian professors were asked
to subscribe to an oath which read :

“ I swear to be loyal to the King, to his Royal suc-
cessors, and to the Fascist regime, and to observe
loyally the Constitution and other laws of the State ;
to exercise the position of teacher and to fulfill my
academic duties with the idea of forming industrious
citizens, upright and devoted to the Fatherland, and
to the Fascist regime. I swear I do not belong to and
never will belong to associations or Parties whose activ-
ities cannot be reconciled with the duties of my
office.”

There was a minority hesitancy in subscribing to
this oath, but practically all ultimately signed.

One notable feature of school life is the inculcation
of the ntilitary idea. Wars are not merely sets of
double dates in a history book. They are paragraphs
of glory and emulation, and a classic flavour — a sense

390

TEACHING THE YOUNG IDEA

of historical continuity — ^is given to Italian victories.
Latin has been extended as a compulsory subject to
all sections of the secondary schools.

All Provincial administration of schools has been
suppressed and a Scholastic Council, centralised under
the Ministry of Public Instruction, has been instituted,
with special committees for Provincial and grade
schools. By this means public education has been
taken out of what amounted to detached bureaucratic
control. It is political control over educational policy
which has now been achieved. During the first decade
of the regime the Government built, in 2 764 Communes,
schools comprising 11,000 schoolrooms capable of
serving 620,000 scholars. Most of the new schools are
in Southern Italy.

The actual scholastic side of higher education in
Fascist Italy merges into a department of activity in
which physical instruction is prominent. This physical
instruction in turn is based on a military organisation
which sets the feet of Italian children from the age of
six into drill formations and pushes their minds into
familiarity with the training and thoughts of the fight-
ing forces. The principal nation-wide organisation for
this work is the Opera Nazionale Balilla. The official
task of this Opera is the “ physical and material educa-
tion of youth.”

The name Balilla itself is linked with one of the
heroic incidents in the history of the Italians’ struggle
for independence. In 1 746, while the Austrians were
in possession of Genoa, they called on the citizens to
help them drag a cannon on to the main road in order
that it be used against those compatriots and allies
who would deliver the town from Austrian yoke.
While the Austrian soldiers were forcing the citizens

391

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

to this work, a boy called Giovanni Battista Perasso,
but known to everyone by the nick-name of Balilla,
defied the orders of the Austrian detachment. Like
David he slung a stone at the enemy. That stone
became the symbol of the revolt which, although
suppressed at the time, reawoke to win ultimate
independence for Genoa and all Italy.

Although the Balilla organisation is dovetailed into
the scholastic system, it is nevertheless under the direct
vigilance of the Capo del Governo and is indirectly
under the disciplinary orders of the National Black-
shirt Militia. Along with these Balilla boys there is
an equivalent institution for girls known as Piccole
Italiane and the Giovani Italiane^ who number over one-
and-a-half million members.

Along with this physical work there is also State-
controlled welfare work which insures that every
child, whether he belongs to the Balilla) the Piccole
Italiane or not, is made as physically sound as possible.
Open-air schools, open-air recreation, open-air games,
open-air seaside and mountain camps are the principal
means towards this end. During the height of summer
it is safe to say that seventy-five per cent of the city
workingclass children have a minimum holiday of three
weeks at a summer camp. Each city in Italy has got
two camps bearing the city’s name — one on the sea and
the other in mountain areas of the Alps or Apennines.
The very finest health resorts in Italy have these
summer centres, and no vested interests are allowed to
interfere with the full establishment of the camps.
Children are sent to the sea or the mountains accord-
ing to their medical needs.

These summer camps are also open to the children
of Italian workmen in other countries. This has proved

39s

TEACHING THE TOUNG IDEA

one of the most invaluable means of propaganda
among Italians abroad, and has done much to con-
vince such Italians of the real and intimate benefits
arising out of the new regime. During the summer
months of 1933, 30 ,ooo children were brought into
Italy, given a month’s holiday, and returned to their
parents abroad. A nominal payment is demanded,
as it is the purpose of the regime to avoid the idea
that it is charity and not patriotic co-operation which
prompts their efforts.

These camps are also the starting-points for athletic
training which is thereafter carried on into youth-time
and early manhood. The regime is not yet old enough
for more than one generation to have grown up from
childhood to full manhood, but even so, the athletic
training which that generation has received has been
sufficient to win for Italy second place at the Olympic
Games at Los Angeles. The Italian team there
easily outpointed all other European teams, and
was only exceeded by the home team of American
competitors.

Although the Balilla with its subsequent Militia
training has done much to improve the physique of
the race, it is really through an institution known as
the Opera JVazionale Dopolavoro that specialised train-
ing up to championship form is given to Italian youth.
The Olympic Cup for 1932 was assigned to this
Dopolavoro organisation in token of the world cham-
pionship standard to which it had raised Italian sport.
This Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro is, like all other Fascist
institutions, linked into the framework of the complete
Fascist organisation ; its most significant connection is
with the Workers’ Syndicates. Dopolavoro — “ After
Work ” — seeks to create recreational interests for the

393

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

working classes, and its success has been one of the
most notable things in the history of Fascism.

There is no department of amusement, instruction,
art, sport, music or hobbies of whatever nature that
has not got its place in the Dopolavoro. It has travel-
ling theatres and travelling operas which bring the
best work before country audiences in the most remote
parts of the peninsula. Everyone is served by the
Dopolavoro but no one is favoured above his neigh-
bours. Some figures published on the Tenth Anniver-
sary of the Fascist regime and on the seventh anniver-
sary of the foundation of the Dopolavoro^ showed that
this institution had established 1350 people’s theatres ;
2208 dramatic societies ; 2365 libraries, many of them
travelling hbraries ; that it had organised 3324 brass
bands and 2139 orchestral societies ; and that its
members had given 44,200 theatrical and folk-lore
spectacles and 98,744 concerts. The membership of
the Dopolavoro has risen from 10,000 in 1929 to
1,667,000 in January 1933. That figure continues to
soar and by the time this book is in print it will prob-
ably have passed the 2,000,000 figure.

The Fascist Party has special committees which keep
it in continual touch with these educational and
health manifestations of the regime. Instruction and
physical training continue throughout the growing
years of the rising generations — instruction with “ a
new manner of living ” as its basis ; physical training
with military efficiency as its ideal : “ The Book and
the Rifle.”

394

CHAPTER VII
PERENNIAL STREAM

The Rising Generations. Militia's All-important R6le. Annual Levy.
From Boys to Veterans. The Ceremony. Consigning the Rijle. Fourteen
Tears’ Training in Citizenship. Giovinezza kept pristine.

W E have seen the Blackshirt National Militia in
course of these pages perform all sorts of tasks ;
we have seen it, in course of its evolution, survive many
vicissitudes. We have seen it as a handful of desperate
fighting squads — ^members of the Fasci di Combatti-
mento — confronting the organised multitudes of inter-
nationally led Socialists in 1919- 1920 ; we have seen
it as an irregular yet cohesive force ranged against the
Democratic- Liberal regime in 1921-1922 ; we have
seen it, in the March on Rome, as the spear-head argu-
ment of Fascism in Mussolini’s elevation to govern-
mental power in October 1922 ; we have seen it as a
formally enrolled National Militia in January 1923 ;
we have seen it as the hammer of the Aventine and
other Opposition from 1923 on ; we have seen it as a
Blackshirt Army formally enrolled in the service of the
Grown in October 1924 ; we have seen it reorganised
and equipped as a regular unit of the State by 1925 ;
we have seen its inner spiritual significance expounded
in the doctrinal section of this book and there we have
also seen the symbolism with which it contributes to
the mystic side of Fascism ; we have seen it again in
this last section as an auxiliary element in the educa-
tion and physical development of youth ; we have

395

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

seen it as a pre-military training ground ; we have
seen it as part of the Regular Italian Army ; and we
have seen it as the executors and guarantors of public
services in the Departments of Police, Frontiers, Anti-
Aircraft, Forests, Railways, Ports, Postal, Colonial,
Communications, and Highway Traffic Service.

Essential as these historical and practical manifesta-
tions are to the progress of the Revolution, what is per-
haps its greatest responsibility and function has yet to
be described. The Blackshirt National Militia is the
artery through which the blood of new generations
flows into the Fascist Revolutionary State. The ranks
of the Fascists receive this influx once a year on Rome’s
Birthday and Italian Labour Day, April 21. The
ceremony is known as the Fascist Levy.

As well as recounting the history of the National
Militia, I have also described the development and
work of the Balilla and of its senior organisation, the
Avangmrdisti, or advanced guards. They play their
all-important part in this annual levy which tranfuses
the Revolution from one generation to another. In
describing the spirit and process of the levy I may be
gmlty of a little recapitulation, but this is necessary in
order to recast the idea in the reader’s mind of the
Blackshirt Militia in its particular character of Revolu-
tion continuity ; and also to emphasise the vast out-
ward difference between the conditions amid which
the new generations are rising and those which char-
acterised the early days of the Militia squads — a
difference which the Fascists do not wish to be
forgotten.

In the well-ordered Rome of today, where everything
bustles along peacefully though noisily, one is apt to
forget that it is the capital of a country ruled by a

396

Xhe ceremony of consie;ning fasci^it emblems from the senior to
the junior giades ol the rising gcnciations of Blackshirts is carried
out at the Fascist Levy every April In this picture an Aimi^uardista
IS handing over his cordon to an age-limit Balill i, who thus becomes
an Avanguardista , the age-limit Avanguaidista in turn receiving

PERENNIAL STREAM

Revolutionary regime, and that it is the headquarters
of that Revolution control. Parades of Blackshirts,
which less than ten years ago meant a muster for some
bloody job of attack or defence, now signify spectacles
for which the public demand grand-stand tickets. Is it
just that the Blackshirts — the men of the fighting
squads and the raid troops — have grown ten years
older, and that, in their new smart uniforms, they
have become harmless middle-aged men, more or less
picturesque anachronisms ? It is certainly not so.
The men of the real Revolution days, when the
Socialists, Communists and Anarchists had to be
physically fought, now assemble only on special Fascist
Party occasions, and they assemble frankly as “ vete-
rans ” or, as they are more often called here, “ First-
Hour Fascists.” Nevertheless, they are always working
for the Party in a way which is calculated to guarantee
“ the continuity ” of the Revolution.

They do this by acting as instructors, teachers,
advisers, office-bearers and lecturers to the M.V.S.N.,
the present-day National Safety Volunteer Militia.
These “ first-hour ” men are those who fought in the
“ action squads ” or “ shock troops ” of Mussolini in
1 9 1 9 — squadristi, the arditi and the fiamme nere which
as a whole formed the Fasci di Combattimento whose
history we have already followed. A selection of men
from these veterans is devoted to preserving the revolu-
tionary past, the fortification of the present against
anything which might threaten the work of the
Revolution State, and the ensurance of the revolu-
tionary future.

No one, with extremely rare exceptions, can enlist
direct into the ranks of the Volunteer Militia. And
therein lies the secret of its continuity along the genera-

397

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

tions. Recruitment is made exclusively through the
annual April 21 Fascist Levy ; and that levy is
made from the Fasci Giovanili di Combattimento — the
Young Fighting Fascists. These are twenty-year-old
youths who have in turn, in the course of years, been
levied from the Avanguardisti and, while still younger,
from the Balilla. The veteran Militiamen are already
nearly all outside the ranks of the present-day Militia ;
but, as above noted, they act as instructors, etc., or else
have passed into other spheres of Fascist propaganda
among the people. The numbers coming annually
into the Militia is more or less equivalent to the num-
bers retiring from all but special service.

The Levy is performed with special ceremony, and
Mussolini, whenever possible, takes personal part in the
Rome parade. At the last Levy in April 1933 there
were 2,688,687 children and youths enrolled among
the junior organisations from which the Militia ranks
are fed. Infants of six years old are mustered into
the almost kindergarten fold of the first-year Balilla.
Balilla who have reached the age of fourteen, and have
qualified for promotion, pass into the Avanguardisti.
Eighteen-year-old Avanguardisti who have completed
their training, and show the necessary aptitude and
character, become members of the Fasci Giovanili;
and these on becoming twenty years old and on the
satisfactory conclusions of their final tests — political,
moral, physical, military, and specialised in accordance
with the branch of the Militia with which they hope
to serve — are enrolled ais members of the Fascist Party
and as Volunteers of the National Militia.

At every stage of promotion each grade of the
ascending senior youths take off the emblems of their
formation and consign them individually to the young

393

PERENNIAL STREAM

newcomer. Each embraces the other, and the Fascist
oath is renewed. In the junior formations the princi-
pal emblem is the coloured kerchief which is worn
loosely knotted over the black shirt. In the inter-
mediate grades it is a knotted cordon. In the senior
formation it is the rifle which is handed on.

During the 1933 ceremony over 108,000 eighteen-
year-old Avanguardisti thus consigned their symbolical
kerchiefs of the Roman colours (orange and brown)
and moved into the Fasci Giovanili, and an almost
equal number entered full membership of the Party.

This means that there is a yearly entry of a new
young generation into the political, semi-military and
civil life of the new Italy — a new generation which has
already completed fourteen years of training in civic
and military discipline, in initiative, in thought for
others, in respect for religion, in a sense of duty, in
patriotic and political ideas as propounded by the
Fascists and in concentrated Fascist national idealism
with special regard to the “ destiny ” of Italy, the
superiority of the Fascist system and unquestioning
devotion to the regime and to the Duce.

In this way the spirit of the March on Rome is car-
ried forward in a perennial re-incarnation of its
pristine Giovinezza.

399

CHAPTER VIII
PATER PATRIAE

Mussoliniana. More Arbiter than Dictator. Method of Work. Colla-
borators. Endless Labour. Personal Regime. Publicity. Aloof from
Intimacy. Death of Arnaldo. Odyssey of Thought and Action. The
New Faith.

W HAT of the man who is the originator of the
Revolution, the animator of the regime and the
fabricator of New Italy — the man who has led his
country Through Fascism to World Power ? Readers
who have followed me thus far will, by force of the
facts assembled within these covers, realise the truth
of the words written in my Preface : “ Fascism is so
much the creation of Mussolini that any history of it
must perforce be a history of Mussolini. His name,
thoughts, words and deeds therefore run through this
history just as they run through the life of modem
Italy, so that it is well-nigh impossible to detach the
movement from its master-mind,”

It is curious to reflect in passing how the Govern-
ments and political parties which flourished before the
advent of Fascism were associated more strongly in
most cases with the names of the Premiers and Party
leaders than with the names of the political schools of
thought they were supposed to represent — the “ Salan-
dra ” Government, the *' Giolitti ” Liberals, the
“ Graziani List,” the “ Lombardo Pellegrino ” Group,
and so on. And yet none of such as these was the
creator of any system of Government. On the other
hand there has never been in the history of Italy a
400

PATER PATRIAE

Government and policy so completely identified with
one man as in the case of Fascism — and there ha.s
never been a Government in which the name of its
creator and the title of its governmental system has
been so meticulously kept apart. You hear plenty of
the Duce del Fascismo, but never nowadays of the
“ Mussolini ” Fascists ; you hear in Italy of the
“ Fascist ” or the “ Italian ” but not of the “ Mus-
solini ” Government ; and there are Fascisti, but no
“ Mussoliniani.”

As early as 1924 Mussolini checked any attempt to
confuse himself as the leader of Fascism and Fascism
itself, “ There are some who would create an anti-
thesis between Fascismo and Mussolinismo. I don’t
accept this. In reality Mussolinismo would be used by
certain folk as a kind of viaticum to enable them to
fight, first Fascism and then Mussolini. I tell you that
the most decided axAi-Mussoliniano is Mussolini. I beg
of you to abuse my name no longer.”

Despite the publicity which surroimds Mussolini’s
public activities there is still a considerable misreading
of his governmental methods and personal character
in administrative affairs. The most persistent myth
is that he is a dictator whose desk is piled up with
Ministerial portfolios ; that laws jump ready-made
out of his brain and that he sees to their immediate and
unalterable application ; that he has, not collabora-
tors, but more or less terrified underlings ; and that
no one dare mention his name above a whisper without
risk of being clapped into gaol !

To my mind the best word to describe Mussolini is
not dictator of Italy but final arbiter. In an abstract
sense the dictator of Italy is not a person, but is the
doctrine of Fascism itself, as a way of living. It is a
ac

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

creed, which imposes itself on the nation ; and Musso-
lini is the absolute interpreter of that creed in its
translation into law and is the arbiter of its interpreta-
tions by others. In the practical field Mussolini is
also more an arbiter than a dictator. Schemes are
worked out by their exponents and experts. The
finished plan or rival plans are submitted to Mussolini.
With a genius for quickly grasping the essentials of any
problem and with an uncanny flair for sensing the
competence or otherwise of exponents and experts, he
works out his conclusions and his judgment becomes
law.

Mussolini’s assumption of several Ministerial port-
folios — he has held as many as eight at one time —
means that he accepts responsibility while some ques-
tion of Ministerial policy is under discussion, while
some particular question requires special handling or
public confidence reinforced, or while an Under-
secretary is being trained and tried out for the full
post. The changes wrought from time to time in the
junior Ministerial and diplomatic ranks make the
Cabinet a training ground where future Ministers,
Ambassadors and Consuls learn the Mussolini way not
only of thinking about things but of doing things.
These changes are usually made with disconcerting
suddenness and unexpectedness, the deposed official
even learning from his morning newspaper that his
“ resignation has been accepted,” — a pill usually
coated with a few words of appreciation about his
work.

This change-over system in Government and Party
office has been reduced to a ritual known as “ changing
the guard,” so that no stigma is attached to dismissal.

For the preparation of the enormous number of

PATER PATRIAE

Decree Laws which are passed Mussolini lays down the
general principles. The Fascist Grand Council de-
fines, in the form of a resolution, the Party policy for
the furtherance of these principles. The Chamber,
being constituted of experts presumably familiar with
the particular national interest which they represent,
is easily resolved into committees capable of handling
all the topics with which Government has to deal.
These committees along with the juridical experts dis-
cuss and frame the Bills, which therefore come before
the Chamber, as it were, ready-made.

There is perhaps no Prime Minister with such a
number of collaborators as Mussolini, because for
every given task he calls on the best man available in
the country to work with him for its speedy comple-
tion. In fact it is possible to follow the evolution of
Fascism by noting the kind of men whom Mussolini
successively calls to co-operate with him for the fur-
therance of his national programme. For instance, in
the case of finance, we see first the theorist and re-
former, de Stefani, in office as Finance Minister. As
soon as he had got Italian finance back on the rails
with the Budget balanced and the financial engine
moving forward with a credit balance, then Mussolini
changed the academic de Stefani for the go-ahead
man-of-the-world business expert Volpi. When Volpi
had fixed up the American debt and had the country’s
finances careering at full speed, he was replaced by
another type, Mosconi. Mosconi, actuarially minded,
just kept things going on steadily on the set course
mrtil replaced by the banker Jung, who now engineers
the nation’s finances through the danger zones of inter-
national conflicts between the inflationists and the
gold standard schools.

s as

403

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

It will be seen from this typical example that Musso-
lini’s “ dictatorship ” consists of utilising the collabora-
tion of the right men at the right time and for the right
period. Cabinet changes no longer meaning crises,
but rather an adjustment of governmental rhythm.
The same thing may be noted in the Party hierarchy.
The Party Secretary at the March on Rome, Michele
Bianchi, was a Fascist forerunner fighting for a national
ideal but within a Party framework. The succeeding
two secretaries after Mussolini came to power were
organisers with a particular knowledge of whereabouts
lay the opponents of Fascism. The Matteotti set-back
was stemmed by putting the intransigent Farinacci in
office. The recovery was marked by a programme
directed towards raising the physique of the genera-
tion, so the sportsman Turati was put in charge,
Turati was dismissed the Party for personal reasons,
but his work as an organiser had been completed.
And now Starace, a hard-working, imassuming man,
represents the current policy of bringing Fascism more
into the everyday life of everyday people.

Others continue doing collaborative work in special-
ised fields — men like Marshal Badoglio, Air Marshal
Balbo, Dino Grandi, Costanzo Ciano, del Croix,
Renato Ricci and many others who are faithful inter-
preters of Mussolini’s will in fields of activity repre-
sented in the above names by Colonial and military
administration, aeronautical expansion, foreign af-
fairs, communications, ex-servicemen’s interests and
the Balilla movement. In the Ministry of Corpora-
tions you see young revolutionary enthusiasts suc-
ceeded by men of the hard-bitten Labour school. But
behind all that ebb and flow of collaboration there is
Mussolini’s final word in all things. He does not, how-
404

PATER PATRIAE

ever, stick blindly to his pronouncements. His decisions
are the means and not the end of his leadership.

More than once he has been betrayed in the confi-
dence which he has reposed on his lieutenants. It is
not for nothing that in his play The Hundred Days his
mind dwells on the internal drama of Napoleon and
Fouch6.

Living in Rome, it is amusing to hear of the different
people who in succession are supposed to “ influence ”
Mussolini. It is not people, but events, which influence
him. He calls in many consultants and takes note of
all reasoned advice, but he has a mighty quick eye for
anyone who tries to influence his policy or line of con-
duct. On this subject Mussolini has said : “ There
is a fable which describes me as a good dictator
but always surrounded by evil counsellors to whose
mysterious and malign influence I submit. All that is
more than fantastic : it is idiotic. Considerably long
experience goes to demonstrate that I am an indivi-
dual absolutely refractory to outside pressure of any
kind. My decisions come to maturity often in the
night — ^in the solitude of my spirit and in the solitude
of my rather arid (because practically non-social)
personal life. Those who are the ‘ evU counsellors of
the good tyrant ’ are the five or six people who come
each morning to make their daily report, so that I may
be informed of all that’s happening in Italy. After
they have made their reports, which rarely takes more
than half an hour, they go away.”

In addition to this, Mussolini spoke of his real colla-
borators, saying : “ But I must add that to those who
make their reports there are my more direct colla-
borators in my daily task, collaborators who specially
share with me the salt bread of Fascist Governmental

405

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

responsibility. To those I hereby express the full
sense of my friendship and gratitude.”

Another fable which could be scouted is the persis-
tent belief among a surprising number of English and
American visitors to Rome that it is dangerous to
mention Mussolini’s name in public ! These ridicu-
lous people call him “ Mr. Smith/’ and seem to get
a thrill out of their supposed “ knowingness.”

As the inspirer, driving force and one responsible
for the growth of present-day Italy, the work which
Mussolini has accomplished since he became Prime
Minister in 1922 baffles the imagination. It is doubt-
ful if any man in world history has so much trans-
formed a nation in so short a period of time. Others
have made territorial expansion — ^raising States to
Empires' — or have revolutionised the administrations
of countries ; but Mussolini has done something more
profound. He has changed the spirit of a race, indi-
vidually and collectively. It is not only the Italians
in Italy who are different from what they were eleven
years ago or so, but also the millions of Italians in the
two Americas and in other parts of the globe.

In addition to his labours as Capo del Governo and
his mirusterial work in all home and foreign affairs, he
has arduous responsibilities as Duce del Fascismo, He
takes a keen and knowledgeable interest in every con-
structive aspect of Italian life, from the motor-cycle
trade to high finance. He receives an endless stream
of people, from statesmen to labourers, from inter-
viewers to curiosity-mongers who have pulled wires
to be able to add Mussolini to the sights of Rome. He
writes articles and plays, delivers lectures, opens
conferences, inspects public works, receives petitions
and deputations, attends the Chamber, holds Cabinet
406

PATER PATRIAE

meetings at ten in the morning and Fascist Council
meetings at midnight, and drafts all his resolutions,
minutes, reports and plans. At the Fifth Annual
Assembly of the regime in 1929 he told his audience
that he had granted 60,000 audiences and had inter-
ested himself in 1,887,112 matters concerning citizens
who had written to him, and “ every single citizen
who had applied to him, even from the remotest
villages, had received a reply.”

Mussolini could appropriately be called Pater Patriae.
He has imited the Italian people as one family; and
all turn to him, as to the head of the house, with their
troubles, knowing that they can be sure of justice in
his judgment. These appeals and the enormous pro-
grammes of work which he plans and carries out
demand, it is obvious, a powerful concentration of
unusual whi-power.

How does he do it? He answered this question
at the same Fifth Assembly meeting : “To reach this
pitch I have set my motor to a regime. I have ration-
alised my daily work. I have reduced all waste of
time and energy to a minimum. I have adopted this
maxim which I recommend to all Italians — each day’s
work must be methodically but regularly cleared off
in the course of the day. No work held over unfinished.
Ordinary work ought to be carried out with an almost
mechanical automatic precision.”

Mussolini has a mind divided into insulated com-
partments, so that he can pass from one subject to
another with complete freshness of outlook. He sleeps
little, but profoundly and at will. There is never a
litter of papers on his huge table-desk in Ws working
room, the Salone del Mappamondo, at the Palazzo
Venezia. Even in his intervals from work he must be

.407

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

up and doing things — riding, fencing or driving his
car at high speed. On July ag, 1933, he celebrated his
fiftieth birthday, but there is no diminution of his
energy : the spirit of giovinezza remains. He loves
to be out and about with a great crowd of officials —
sometimes hundreds of them — out of breath to keep
abreast of him, and he likes nothing better than to
welcome great concourses of Italians and to be wel-
comed in return as their Duce.

Batteries of cameras follow him. Far from objecting,
he has an instinct for what should make a good picture,
and he doesn’t disappoint the photographers in their
chances to take advantage of the opportunities created.
But the note in these pictures is not Mussolini per se,
but Mussolini “ doing something which means some-
thing ” in the advancement of his work for the
nation.

For relaxation he sometimes has chamber concerts
in his house or sees the latest films in the International
Institute of Cinematography whose premises adjoin
the gardens of his house, or plays the violin. He would
like to live even more in direct contact with the
people but he has to submit himself to the protective
dispositions of the police, who take no risks with their
charge.

Mussolini’s life is in fact, except for rare moments,
one continual round of work. He once said, while
speaking on “ liberty,” that he of all Italians had least
liberty ; and on another occasion he said that the only
thing he had got out of his job was a fine horse. His
dream is to hunt — “ There is no sport more electrify-
ing, especially if weU movmted on a fast-going animal
that takes all obstacles and goes like an arrow ! But
alas 1 I have no time to join the hunt ; so I have my

40B

PATER PATRIAE

morning gallop and then feel supremely prepared to
confront the grave responsibilities of office.”

He is inexorably hostile to nepotism. A good front
seat at a football match is about the limit of the con-
cessions given to his boys. Family life is kept a thing
apart from public life. Since Mussolini took office he
has had no holiday longer than three consecutive days,
and these brief occasions he always spends with ids
wife and children, farming on the experimental plots
of his small estate in his native Romagna.

With all his world rSclame, with all the publicity of
his office and of his outward life, with all the hordes
of people with whom he comes in contact, with all his
collaborators and colleagues, it can be said of Musso-
lini that he is one of the best-known men in the world
to-day. But it can also be said that he is the least
known. And if he is the most popular man in Italy,
he is also the most solitary. No one knows the inner
Mussolini. He has no intimates : no boon com-
panions. His nature opens in compassion before the
generic idea of humanity, but holds strangely aloof
from individual humans. His greatest and closest
friend was his younger brother Amaldo. As editor of
the Popolo d’ Italia, and as helpful encourager and con-
fidant of the Duce, the two brothers held one another
in particular affection. In 1930 Arnaldo’s son San-
drino died after a long illness. From this blow Arnaldo
did not recover, and died in 1931. Of that sad occa-
sion Mussolini writes in his Vita di Arnaldo — “ By his
death I have suffered and will suffer long. Mutila-
tions of the spirit no less than those of the body are
irreparable. I feel my grief for the departure of
Arnaldo like a secret fire which will always accom-
pany me : a fire which will feed my will and my faith.

409

THROUGH FASCISM TO WORLD POWER

I will carry the burden (of government) also for him,
so that his labours, his passion and his grief shall not
have been in vain ; so that his memory be honoured ;
so that the ideals in which he believed may triumph
and endure, even, and above all, beyond my life.”
The death of his brother left Mussolini in a mental
soUtude whose consolation is work for the fulfilment of
the ideals they discussed and wrought out together.
Great as are his achievements, it is not as a man of
action, but as a man of thought that the real Mussolini
is to be found. The records of his boyhood show him
to have been a rebellious spirit with complacent auth-
ority as his particular target. It was the complacent
element which roused him then — as it rouses him now
— for that was to him a sign of self-sufficiency indicat-
ing the presence of a mere negative place-holder, and
therefore one who should be deposed. It was through
such early conflicts that his mind passed from hostility
towards the individual to hostility towards the social
system behind the individual. And so by the time
Mussolini had become a youth and had reached early
manhood, his rebellion, was political.

His life mission became a search for a basis of
thought which would satisfy his self-questionings on
the politico-philosophy of government. He set out on
his quest with a medallion portrait of Karl Marx in
his pocket when he first went to Switzerland as a
youth of eighteen. There, in the company of Russian
Nihilists, he devoured the writings of Babeuf, Nietz-
sche, Blanqui and Sorel. He searched the philosophers,
especially Hegel and Schopenhauer. We have fol-
lowed his political Odyssey from that period. We have
seen him with the Anarchists, with the International
Socialists, with the Socialists, with the Socialists of the
410

PATER PATRIAE

Right and of the Left, with the Republicans, with the
Sorel Syndicalists — testing their several tenets, accept-
ing some but always disrupting from their main doc-
trines, always moving on without having ever belonged.
We have seen him gather other strands — ^irredentism,
nationalism, co-operative syndicalism, monarchism.
We have seen how he welded his gathering convictions
with the passion of patriotism, and we have seen the
actions and reactions of events upon the battle of his
progress.

The Fascist Corporate State as it stands to-day
therefore represents the final and concrete answer to
the questions which Mussolini first began putting to
himself as a youth of eighteen in his restless and rebel-
lious pursuit of a new political order. His own faith
now burns in practically every Italian breast — and the
result is New Italy.

FINIS.

INDEX

Abruzzi, aoa
Absolutism, 182
Abyssinia, 222, 264
Academy, the Italian, 263, 339
Adalia, 39, 66
Adige, the, 8

Adriatic, the, 36, 40, 65, 106-7,
log-to, 118, 1Q3, 136, 163-7,
213, 218-9, 383
Aegean, the, 36, 108, 216, 225
Aesop, 71
Afghanistan, 217
Africa, 107, 1 13
Africa, Northern, see North
Agello, Francesco, 385
Agrarian centres, 99
Agriculture, 360-1, 363
Ail Force, the, 376-8, 384, 386-7
Albania, 37, 39, 60, 86, 109-10, 1 14,
167-8, 212, 214, 216, 220, 225
Alhertini, Senator, 132, 158
Algeciras, 220
Algeria, ig

Allgeminer Deutscher Schulverein, 20
“ Alliance of Work,” the, 138-9
Allogeni, the, 178
Alpine frontier of i8ii, the, 7
Alps, the, 8, 57, 59, 165, 214, 255,

385, 39a

Alsace, 269

Alto Adige, the, 8, 38, 92-3, 1 18,
143, “55

Amendola, Giovanni, 181
America, see United States
America, South, 66, 212
American troops at Fiume, 109
Amnesty, 245-6

Amsterdam Internationale, the, 86
Anarchism, 139

Anarchists, the, 27, 30, 44, 79, 81,

83, 91, 1*7, aoo, *03, 2 1 1, 244,

397, 410

Anatolia, Southern, 108
“ Ancient Rome on the Sea,” 383
Ancona, 30-1, 83, 86, 101

41a

Andreas Hoferbmd, the, 93
Anniversary of the Tenth Year, g
Anschluss, the Austro-German, 9,
214-5, 270_

Anti-Bolshevist Popular Union,
the, 85

Anti-clericalism, 12 1

Anti-monarchism, 82

Aosta, Duke of, 1 29

Apennines, the, 392

Arabia, 113

Ara Pacis, the, 296

Ara Patria, the, 2 10

Arditi, the, 81, 9 1, 1 1 3, 1 83, 325, 397

Arezzo, 83

Armaments, 254, q6o, 264-5
Armistice, the, 69, 93, 109-10, 143,
163

Armistice Day, 155, 201, 322
Army, the, 376-81, 385, 395-6
Asia Minor, 66, 171
Asiatic Turkey, 39
Assisi, 238

Associations of Employers, 345
Athens, 169, 17 1, 383
Augustus, Emperor, 295-6
Austria, 6 , 7, 9, 1 1, 17, 19, 28-9,
35-8, 40-2, 44-5, 56-7, 61, 65, 69,
76, 92-3, 164, 167, 212, 214, 217-
8, *50, 255-7. *69-71
Austrian Chancellor, the, 255, 257
Austrian Fleet, the, 154
Austrian officials, 142
Author, Mussolini as, 29, 30
Avanguardxsli, the, 85, 235, 276,
365-6, 380, 396, 398-9
Avanti, the, 29, 42-3, 247
“ Aventine ” Opposition, the, 185,
189, 192-3, 198-9, 206, 395

Babeuf, 410
Bachelors, tax on, 230
Badoglio, Marshal, 404
Balbo, General, 144-5, 264, 385-7,
404

Balilla, 230, 235, 276, 279, 365-6,
380, 391-3, 396, 398
Balkan States, 36, 213, 216, 220
Baltic States, 166
Banca Conunerciale, 21
Banca di Sconto, 140
Banca d’ltalia, 378
Banks, the, 80, 83
Barcelona, 384
Bari, 79

Baros, 141, 167, 177

Battisti, Cesare, 29, 44, 61

“ Battle of the Grain,” 357, 363

Bazzi, Emilio, 246

Belgium, 107, 212

Belgrade, 35, 166, 17 1, 218, 253

Benckendorff, 65, 105

Benedict XV,, Pope, 54, 125, 139

Berengario, 4

Bergson, 28-9, 120

Berlin, 42, 384

Berne, 30, 82, loi

Bersaglieri corps, the, 62, 13 1

Biagi, Bruno, 356

Bianchi, Michele, 144-5, 404

“ Big Four,” the, 106

Bisenzio, 79

Bismarck, 18, 315-6

Bissolati, 53

Black shirt, the, 113, 323, 399
Blanqui, izo, 410
Blueshirts, 88, 102, 113
Bologna, 83-4, 88-9, gi, i88, 203
Bolshevism, vii, 66, 70, 76, 96, 137,
139, 215, a8o, 319
Bolzano, 37, 92-3, 142, 255, 271
Bomb outrages, 78-9, 82-3, 89-91,
241-3

BonarLaw, 166
Bonifica Jntegrale, 361-3
Bonomi, 122, 125-7, 14°) *43
Boselli, 53

Bottai, Giuseppe, 356
Bourbons, the, 7, 28
Bovone, 243

Brenner, the, 39, 107, 118, 214-5,
252, 255-6, 270-1, 290
Britain, set Great Britain

mEx

British shipping interests, no
“ Bronze Doors ” of the Vatican,
the, 275

Brussels, 198, 241
Buddha, 29

Budget, the, 157, 190, 358, 403
Buenos Aires, 241
Bulgaria, 40, 76, 164, 218
Bureaucracy, 159

Caesar, Julius, 274, 295
Caesars, the, 5
Gambon, 105

Campidoglio, the, 275, 296
Canada, i66
Candela, 52
Cannes, 242
Cape Planka, 39, 40
Capello, General, 201
Capital, taxation of, 75, 80
Capitalism, I2i, 132
Capitol, the, 105, 146, 328
Capitoline Hill, the, 323
Cnporetto, 53, 58
Capture of factories, 78, 84, 89
Carabinieri, 194, 381-2
Carrara quarry workers, 83
Carso, the, 57-60, 62
Casalini, 188
Castel Gandolfo, 272
Castellini, 61
Castelluzzo, 52
Castor-oil methods, 161, 190
“ Catholic Action,” the, 276-9
Catholic Boy Scouts, 276
Catholic Educational Board, 276
Catholic Young Men's Society,
276

Catholic Young Women’s Society,
276

Catholicism, Roman, 156, 275,

879 . 318. 370. 389

Cattaro, 109, 2l8

Cavour, 8, 16, 18, 130, 237, 275

CecU, Ixird Robert, 17a

Centre, the, 31, 33, 4i, 45-6, 51-2,

117, 173

Cerignola, 52

4^3

INDEX

Chad, Lake, I oS '

Chair of St. Peter, the, 4, 337
Chambery, 242

Charles Albert of Piedmont, 12
Charter, the Labour, 197, 227,
235-6, 239, 34t, 343, 349-50,
353-4

Chief of General Staff, 376-7
Chieti, 202

Chigi archives, the, 238
Child welfare, 230
Christian ethics, 98
Christian Socialism, 99
“ Christian ” trade unions, the,
176

Church, the, 1 1, 98, too, 134, 140,
143, 145, 236-7. 240, 273-4, 276,
290-1, 295, 325

Church and State, 98-9, iai-4,
236, 275, 278, 337
Ciano, Costanzo, 404
Civil Service, the, 154, 235
Class warfare, 27
Clemenceau, 105-6
Clericals, the, 76, 82, 176, an
Coalition Government, British, 53
College of Cardinals, 140
Colonies, the Italian, 106, 163,
231, 360

Colosseum, the, 238
Commercial treaties, 167, 214-5
Commission of Eighteen, the,

195

Committee of Civil Organisation,
81

Committees of Civil Resistance, 379
Communism, vii, lig, 140, jg8,

ai 5 > 315

Communists, the, 97-8, 100, 109,
1 12, 117, 1 19, r25-7, 137-8, 149,
r6i, 174, 178-80, 185-6, 205-6,
211,240, 242,244. 397
Concordat, the, 237, 272-3, 275,
278-9, 291
Condottieri, the, 6
Confederation of Work, 73
Conference of Ambassadors, the,
168, 170-1, 2I6

4 H

Gonfinatii the, ai i
Confino system, the, 205, 245-6
Congresses, Fascist, 80, 143
Congresses, Freemasons’, loi
Constantinople, 384
Constitution of 1848, the, 12, 14
Constitutional Democrats, 186
Constitutional Parties, 96-7
Convention of 1896, the, 221
Conventions of Santa Margherita,

166

Convents, 238
Coping-stone rites, 358
Cordova, 242
Corfu, 65, 167-70, 173
Corpus Germanicum, 4
Corradini, Enrico, 46
Corridoni, Filippo, 46, 61
Corritre della Sera, the, 158
Corruption, political, 97
Corsica, 32, 165
Council of Action, 296
Cremona, 83, 144, 188
Croatia, 40, 65, 109
Croce, Benedetto, 97
Crown Prince, the, 241-2
Crucifix, the, 238
Curzon, Lord, 170
Gyrenaica, 20, 108, 234
Gzarist Russia, 64-6
Czechoslovakia, 167, Z14, 217-8,

265

Dalmatia, 8, 11, t8, 20, 3^-3. 37.

39, 40, 106, 136, 165, 167, 252,

266

D’Annunzio, 33, 47, 6 1 , 88, 90, 1 02,

107 , ” 2 - 4 . 123. * 7 '. 177. 325
Dante, 5, 123, 279, 293, 295, 325
Dante Alighieri Society, 33, 165,

262, 266, 290
Dawes Plan, the, 257
De Bono, General, 144-5, 185,

187-8, 199
De Facta, set Facta
De Giorgio, 385
De Monorchia, 5, 279
De Stefani, 190, 403

Dc Vecchi, 144-5, i47
Debts, 166, 334-5, 354, s6o-i
“ Decalogue,” a, 336-7
Decennale, the, 245, 347, 294-5,
323. 394,

Defence Ministry, 230
Del Croix, 206, 404
Denmark, 269

Deutscher Verband, the, 93, 118
Diaz, General, 54-5, 60, 70, 154,

,385

Digne, 242
Directory, the, 335
Disarmament, 225, 258, 262-3,
266, 268, 270
Disciplina, ix
Disciplinary Court, 335
Dodecanese Islands, the, 38-9, 108,
216

Dollar Debt List, 824
Dollfuss, 270
Donati, Giuseppe, 247
Driu, the river, 40
Dumini, 202

Eastern Friuli, 1 1
Economic crisis, world, 248-9, 260,
262

Education, 304, 388-95
Egypt, 108, HI, 1 13-4, 165
Elections, 80, 89, 94, 1 76-7,206, 239
Electoral reform, i6i, 239
Elena, Queen, 276
Emi^ants, 231, 233
Emilia, 144

Erwiclopedia Italiana, viii, 302, 310
England, see Great Britain
Epirus, 168
Eritrea, 40
Exports, 229

Ex-servicemen, 70, 72-3, 75, 80,
88, 102-3, HO, 186, 189, 206,
355, 357, 363

Facta, de, 12a, 140, 143, 145, 147,
181, 208

Factories, capture of, 78, 84, 89
Faenza, 242

INDEX

Farinacci, i88-g, 199, Q01-2, 231,
404

Farm labourers, 27
Fasci (group centres), 44, 80
Fasd di Combattimento, 71, 74, 135,
137, 324, 395, 397
Fascia, the first, vii
Fascia of Patriotic Assurance, 81 , 85
Fasciolo, Arturo, 247
Fascist Grand Council, x, 160, 1 75,
194-6, 234, 239, 289-91, 335-7,
343. 403
“ Fascisia," 44
Federzoni, 185
Ferrara, 88, 94
Fcrri, Prof. Enrico, 369
Fezzan, the, 224
FilipeUi, 184

Fiume, 32, 40, 76, 8i, loa, 106-7,
109-14, 118, 141, 166-7, 171-3,
177, 253 , 325
Flanders, 59

Florence, 9, 32, 79, 80, 83, 89, 91,
137, 188, 247
Foligno, 144
Forli, 30, 247
Forum, the, 295

Four-Power Pact, the, viii, 226,
249,251,267-9, 271
France, 9, 1 7-8, 37-9, 59-6 1 , 66, 86,
107-8, iio-i, 141, 154, 158, 163-
4, 167, 184, 198, 203, 315
Francis Ferdinand, Archduke, 35
Francis Joseph, Emperor, 92
Freemasonry, 76, 80, 82, loi, 175,
200, 223, 236
Freemasons, see Masons
French Sahara, 108-9
French troops at Fiume, 1 10
Fundamental Ideas of Ftiscism,
302-9

Fuorusdli, the, 198, 200-2, 2 1 1 , 220,
222, 241, 244, 246, 364, 368
Futurists, the, 33, 70

Gallipoli, 58

Garibaldi, 7, 8, 16, 61, 88, 113,
130, 316

4^5

INDEX

Gasparri, Cardinal, 272
Geneva, 29, 30, 369-71, 173, 258,
261-2, 264

Genoa, 12, 79, 138, 224, 391-2
Gentile, Giovanni, 388
George V., King, 166
Georgia, 108-9
Gerarchia, 137

Germany, 4, 18-21, 35-8, 40, 45,
53. 57. 66, 69, 76, 106-7, 163,
212, 214, 2 1 7-2 1, 225-6, 249-52,
259. 265-70, 315, 373, 385
Gibraltar, 59, 384
Gibson, Miss Violet, 203
Giolitti, Giovanni, 15, 31, 41, 44,
51-2, 54, 87, 90, 96-9, 1 14, 117-
9, 122, 125-6, 140, 143, 173.
179-80, 185, 206-9, 225. 243. 400
Giordani, 91

Giovinezza, the, 209, 324, 399
Giunta, 262

Giustiniani Palace, the, 175
Gladstone, 17, 96
Gold standard, 229, 323
Gorizia, 39, 59, 92
Gradisca, 39

Grandi, Dino, 128, 144-5, * 47 .

253. a6i, 263-4, 276, 404
Graziano, 178, 400
Great Britain, 7,17, 37-9, 52-3, 66,
86, 107-8, iio-i, 113-4, 119, 141,
158, 163-4, 198, 212, 217, 220-2,
226, 251-3, 257-9, 262-3, 267,
270-1

Greco-Turkish War, 108
Greece, 64-5, 108, m, 167-71,
212, 216, 256
Grenoble, 242
Grosseto, 126
Guardic Regie, the, 86, 90
Guelph and Ghibelline, 4

Habsburg policy, 20
Hague, The, 38, 257
Hegel, 410
Henderson, A., 258
Hitler, 251-2, 265-6, 269-70
HohcnzoUems, the, 19, loi

416

Holy OfBce, the, 277
Holy Roman Empire, the, 100,
217

Holy See, the, 98, 145, 236-7
Holy Year, the, 278
“ Hundred Days, The,” 405
Hungary, 6g, 76, no, 164, 167,
214. 217-8, 250, 253

Incendiarism, 89

Imperial Rome, 3, 236-7, 293,

363 _

Imperial Way, the, 295

Index, the, 277

Irtfemo, the, 5

Inflation, 229

Innsbruck, 93, 270

Internationalism, 26, 96, lOO, 120

Ireland, 84

Isonzo, the river, 57, 88
Istria, 8, 9, 33, 39, 92, 107
Italian Mission, the, 168, 170
Italian Union of Work, 73
“ Italianity,” 7, 171, 221, 232,
262

Italo-British friendship, 7
Italo-Yugoslav Agreement, 65

Japan, 259
Jarabub, 222
Jews, the, 269
Juarez, Benito, 28
Jubaland, 107, 222
Jung, the banker, 403

Kellogg Pact, the, 268
Kemal, Mustapha, 108
Kerensky, 65-6
Krithia gullies, the, 58
Kufra, 224

“ Labour Chambers,” Socialist, 90
Labour Charter, see Charter
Labour Contracts, 344, 346-50
Labour Court, the, 234, 342, 344,

350. 352

Labour Day, 322, 358, 396
Lateran Palace, 274

INDEX

Lateran Treaty, la, 16,275, 279
Lausanne, 30, 40, 166, ai6, 261
Lavoro Fascista, II, 277
Law of Guarantees, 237, 273
League of Nations, 106, 169-71,
aa5> 249, 258, 264, 267-9
Leghorn, 91, 247
Legionaries of Ronchi, the, i la
Lenin, 79, 90, ug
Leros, qi6

L’Europa seiiza Pace, 107
Levant, the, a 16
Levy, Fascist, 396, 398
Liberalism, 31, 47, 96-7, 158, 170,
196, 198, 208, 306, 308, 314-7
Liberals, the, 85, 96, iga, 153,
158, 160, 170, 173-4, 178-9. aia.
241

“ Liberty and Justice,” 244-5
Libya, 40, io8, aao-2
Lictor’s rods, the, 71, 322, 324
Lidge, 241
Liguria, 89

Lion of St. Mark, 166, 266
Lipari, 205

Little Entente, the, 2 18, 250- 1 , 265
Littoria, 363
Lloyd George, 65, 105-6
Locarno, 225-6, 251, 257, 267,
269

Lombardo, Pellegrino, 400
Lombardy, 18, 8g, 316
London, Secret Treaty of, viii, 38-
9, 64-6, 76, 104-7, log, 164, ai4,
aig, 222
Lucetti, 203-4
Ludwig, Enail, 30
Lugano, 242-3
Luxemburg, 241

MacDonald, Ramsay, 86, 251,267
Machiavelli, 5, 29, 266
Mafia, the, 87
Malatcsta, 83

Malta, 32-3, III, 165, 252, 256-7,
262-3, 383
Mameli’s hymn, 86
“ Man of Destiny,” Italy’s, 1 17

Mandates, 264
Mantua, 144, 293
March on Rome, 39, 6a, 125, 147,
149-50, 154, 158, 160, 175, 185-
6, 191, 226, 240, 245, 310, 314,
321-2. 335, 385, 395, 399, 404
Marinelli, 184, 202
Marinetti, the futurist, 61,81
Mary, Queen, 166
Marx, Karl, a8, 315, 410
Marxism, 29, 312
Masons, the, 76, 80, 8a, loi, 103,
143, 1 61, 175, 200, 21 i-a, 280
Matteotti, Giacomo, 181, 183, 185,
187. 199, 202, 244, 246-7, 404
Mazzini, 78, 123, 132-4, 159, 316,
328

Mediterranean, the, 17, 19, in,
163, 165, 213-6, 220, 256, 383
Memorial Day, 23a
Merano, 7, 37, 93
Mesopotamia, 36, 113
Messina, 79

Milan, 31, 61, 70-1, 75, 79, 82-4,
90-2, 132, 138-9, 144, 147, 154,
183, 245

Militia, the, 174, 177-8, 180, 185,
238-9, 289, 326, 336, 347, 364-5,
369, 373. 381-2, 392-3, 395-8
Mill,J. S., 329, 331

Ministries, Mussolini’s, 29a
Ministry of Corporations, 234, 239,
264, 292, 404

Mittel-Europa push, the, 20, 36
Modena, 91
Moltke, 315

Monarchism, 62, 125, 129-30, 411
Montenegro, 40, no, ng
Monterotondo, 144
Mosconi, 403
Moscow, 70
Montepulciano, 74-5
Munich, 93, 384
Mussolini, Arnaldo, 154, 409-10
Mussolini, the father of, 28

Nancy, 241

Naples, 79, 84, 89, 143-4, 260, 368

¥7

INDEX

Napoleon L, 7, 405
Napoleon III., 18, 315-6
National Council of Corporations,
342, 354

National League, the, 85
National Monument in Rome,

323, 327

Nationalists, the, 3a, 4i-a, 44, 5a,
70, loa, 104, iio-i, 116, 137,
153= 165

Naviglio canal, 8a
Navy, the, 376-8, 383-3. 385
Nazis, the, 369-70
Nettuno, 353

Neutrality question, the, 41, 44,

46-7. 51

New York, aga, 342, 247
Nice, 18, 33, 165, 341
Nietzsche, 39, 410
NihiUsm, 39

Nitti, 82-7, 96, 107, 114, 133, 143,
i6o, i8t, 208
Nobile, General, 386
North Africa, 20, 32, 40, io8, 213,
222, 233-4, 327

Northcliffean methods, 295, 403
Obbtdisco, 8

Orlando, 54, 97, 106-7, 122, 145,
147, 173, 180, ao8
Ostia, 351, 267
Ottoman coasts, the, 36
O.V.R.A., the, 245, 373

Pact of Pacification, the, 137
Padua, 193

Palazzo Chigi, the, 194, aoi,
203

Palestine, 119, 374
Palmerston, 17, 96
Papal States, the, 6-9
Paradiso, the, 5

Paris Peace Conference, set Peace
Parliamentarianism, 99, too, 178,
308

Party system, the, la
Passports, 331, 333
PaUr Patriae, 407

418

Peace Conference, Paris, 64, 70,
76, 96, 101-2, 104, 106-7, 109,
III, 114

Peace Treaty, see Versailles
Penal Code, the, 370, 37a
Persia, 1 13

Perasso, Giovanni Battista, 39a
Perugia, 79, 144-5, 147. 383
Pesaro, 83, 229-30
Petrarch, 105
Philadelphia, 242-3
Piave, the river, 54, 57, 59, 60
Piedmont, 51, 84, 89, 275
Pisa, 79, 83
Pittsburg, 24a
Pius IX., 16,315

Pius XL, 125, 139, 275-6. 279-80
Podesth, Ac, 229, 367-8
Poincari, 166
Pola, 9

Poland, 139, 167, 214, 217-8, 265,
269

Pontine Marshes, the, 362-3
Pope, the, 9, 16, 19, a8, 54, 98,
125, 139, 205,272,275-7, 371
Popolo d’ltalia, the, 43, 45, 62, 70,
78,82, loi, 123, *33-4, 139. 144.
154, 160, 243, 347, a6i, 363-4,

384, 409

Popular Party, the, 8a, 98, 100,

1 17, 121, 126, 140, 143,. 153,
173. 176, 178-80, 187,277
Posen, 139

Prefect, the, 367, 371, 373, 378-9
Press, the, la, i6o-i, 170, 176, 185-
6, 188, 191-a, 201, 203, 205, aog,
212-3, 229, 252, 257, 262, 271,
295, 364, 370-5

Proclamation of Mobilisation, 145-
6

“ Profession of Faith,” Ae, 293
Prussia, 9, 17-8
Public Morals Federation, 276
Public Works, 230, 357-6a
Purgatorio, Ae, 5

" Qjiadrumvirate,” Ae, 144-6,
160, 185, 199, 336, 385

Quarnaro, 9

Qiiirinal, the, 31, 147-8, 276

Rapallo, 1 14, 1 18, i66 '

Ravenna, 5, iq6, 147, 295
Reclamation of land, 357, 361-2
Red Confederation of Workers,

“ Red Day,” 70
“ Red Guards,” Nitti’s, 160
Red Sea, the, 222, 264
Redipuglia cemetery, the, 60
Reds, the, 90, 92, 96-7, 114-5, 130,
193. 335

“ Render unto Caesar,” 276
Reparations, 106, 109, 166, 225,
254, 260-1

Republicanism, 7, 26-8, 30, 43,

125. 129-31

Republicans, the, 44, 80, 178, 187,
211, 410

Revel, Admiral de, 154
Revision, Treaty, 118, 225, 254,
258, 265

Ricci, Renato, 404
Risorgimento, the, 3, 5, 71, 98,
no, 130-2, 148, 175, 217, 236,

275. 328

Robespierre, 319
Romagna, the, 127, 144, 409
Roman Question, the, 15-6, 12 1-2,
140, 236, 239, 272-3, 275
Rome, March on, see March
Ronchi, 1 1 2

Rossi, Cesare, 184, 200, 244, 247
Rossoni, Edward, 356
Roumania, 218

Russia, 38-9, 54, 64-6, 69, 76, 86,
100, 105-6, 108, 163-4, 212, 215-

9 . 264, 373

Sabaudia, 363
” Sacred zones,” 59
Sahara, the, 108-9
St.-Jean-de-Mauriennc, 66, 105
St, Peter’s, 16, 272, 279
Salandra,4i,47,5i,53, 145» 147-8,
170, 173, 180, 185, 208, 225,400

INDEX

Salvemini, Prof. Gaetano, 45-6,
247 _

Sardinia, 161, lyg, 362
Savona, 89
Schools, 357
Schopenhauer, 29, 410
Secret societies, 364, 366, 373
Secret Treaty of London, see
London
Serajevo, 35

Serbia, 35-7, 40, 65, no, ng, 219
Sivres, 108

Sforza, Count, 114, 1 19, 154, 167,
208

Sicily, 19, 87
Siena, 89
Sinn Fein, 113
Smyrna, 66, 108

Socialists, the, vii, 25-35, 42, 44,
52-5. 69-73, 76-9, 81-5, 87-91,
94-102, 1 17, 120, 126, 136-40,
143, 159-61, 173, 178, 180, 185,
205, 211, 306, 312-3
Sofia, 384

Soldiers’ and Workers’ Councils,
54. 73

“ Solomons,” the, 196
Somaliland, 20, 40, 222
Sons of Italy Society, 243
Sorel, 28-30, 88, 410-1
South America, 66, 212
Southern Tyrol, 8, 38, 92-3, 142-3
Spain, 167, 220
Spalato, 166

Special Defence Tribunal, 243-4,

364. 369

Squadristi, the, 91, 159, 174, 178,
397

Stampa, the, 53
Strickland, Lord, 256, 262
Sturzo, Don, 98-100, 176, 208
Switzerland, 29, 166, 215, 410

Tangier, 220, 253
Taranto, 169, 383
Tariffs, 214-5, 226, 264
Taxation of capital, 75
Theunis, i66

4^9

INDEX

Three-Power Naval Pact, 359
Ticino, 33
Tirana, Pact of, qi6
Tiroler Volksbund, the, ao
Tivoli, 14^

Tonelii, Angelo, 347
Toscanini, 81
Trade treaties, 163
Trau, 266

Treaty of Versailles, s«« Veraaillca
Trentino, the, 8, 11, 18, 33, SB,

145. 215

Treviso, 86
Tribma, the, 53, 26a
Tributory Pact, the, 106
Trieste, it, 18, 20, 32, 37, 39, 59,
61, go, 107, 1 12, 126
Triple Alliance, the, viii, ig, 35,
37, 40-1, aao

Tripoli, 20, 108, 223, 234, 360,

3G5. 384

Tunis, ig, 20, 108, 1 1 1, 165, aao-i,
241, 3O4

Turati, Augusto, aoi, 231, 404
Turati, the Socialist, ao8
Turin, 8, g, 53-4, 79, 89, 188, 265,
894

Turkey, 39, 40, 64, 66, 76, 105-8,
164-5, 17°) 218, ai6, 222, 256,
373

Tuscany, 74, 145
Tyrolese, the, 255-6
Tyrrhenian Sea, the, 383

Udine, 132-3, 143
Umbria, 144

Unemployment, 249, 349, 357
United States, 64-5, 105, 198, qoo,
212, 224.6, 232-3, 242-3, 245,
849, 252, 257, 259, 261, 264-5,
268, 382

Universities, 235, 276, 328, 365
Unknown Warrior’s tomb, 148,
810, 275, 328

Vacirca, Vmr.enzo, 247
Vallona, 86
Valombra,

Vatican, the, 6, 16, too, iqi, 140,
176, 238, 272, 275-6, 279-80, 291
Veneto, the, 57.9, 94, 127
Venezia Giulia, j t, 18, 32, 37, 46
Venice, 8, 9, 12, 107, 188, 193, 316
Verona, 79, 83, 93
Versailles, Treaty of, viii, 64, 75,
III, 1 15, 1 18, 217, 249, 254,
265

Vicenza, 190

Victor Emmanuel L, 8, g, 19
Victor Emmanuel II., r8, 92-3,
129, 147, 240, 276, 292
Victory Day, 155, 322
Vienna, 7, 20, 37, 47, 270, 383
Villafranca, Peace of, viii, 18, 20
Virgil, 5, 105,274,293, 325
Vittorio Veneto, victory of, 55, 59,
60, 104, 123, 146, 148, 154
Voloska, Gulf of, 40
Volpi, 224, 403
Volta, 294
Votive chapel, 328

War and Neutrality, 46
War Diary, Mussolini’s, 63, 6g
War, the Great, viii, 34-5, 51, 85,
i93> 817.281) 846, 261, 293, 316,
383

Warsaw, 139

Washington, 167, 224-5, 249, 257,
259, q6i

Wilson, President, 65, 74, 104-6,

III

Women and children, welfare of,
230

Yanina, 168

Yugoslav Committee, the, 65
Yugoslavia, 65, 104-6, no, 114,
118, 141, 166-7, 171-3, 177, 818,
214-20, 252-3, 265-7
Yugoslavs, the, 33

Zamboni, 200-1, 203
Zara, 167

Zionist movement, the, 119
Zurich, 242, 384

ROBERT UACI.E£I>3B AND CO. LTD,

[tY l>&XS€, OLASaOW

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